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/ (GEOGRAPHICAL, CONCEPTIONS ] 


“OF COLU MBUS — 
ay 2G. E. NUNNE , 


‘AMERICAN agGGRAPHIEAL SOCIETY [a 


RESEARCH SERIES NO.I4 . 














GEOGRAPHICAL CONCEPTIONS 
OF COLUMBUS 





AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 


RESEARCH SERIES NO. I4 
W. L. G. Jorre, Editor 


THE GEOGRAPHICAL 
CONCEPTIONS OF 
COLUMBUS 


A Critical Consideration of Four Problems 


BY 


GEORGE E. NUNN 





AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 
BROADWAY AT J] S6TH STREET 
NEW YORK 


1924 





COPYRIGHT, 1924 

Penny, Die 

THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL 
OF NEW YORK _ 





TO 


FREDERICK J. TEGGART 


V+ 


ACHER, GUIDE, AND FRIEND 





» CONTENTS 


PAGE 
THE DETERMINATION OF THE LENGTH OF A TER- 
BeoTRIAL IIEGREE BY COLUMBUS ...... I 
THE ROUTE OF COLUMBUS ON His FIRST VOYAGE 
As EVIDENCE OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE 
WINDS AND CURRENTS OF THE ATLANTIC. . oii 
Dip CoLUMBUS BELIEVE THAT HE REACHED ASIA 
Peete OURTH VOYAGE? . . 4. 5. ee 54 
THE IDENTITY OF ‘‘FLORIDA’’ ON THE CANTINO 
PMEEPOME SO Me ei ee ee OI 


Ee OM gk te ew ve GB 


FIG, 


16 


PL. 


II 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE 
Part of the map of the Iberian Peninsula in the 1490 


edition of Ptolemy..... nt einen ep Sey 2 
Part of a gore of Behsim’s S globe “i ex ee re as oe 16 
Ptolemy’s map of the known world in 150 A. D. from 

Pert OCIION Of T4090... os ke ce ee ee 58-59 
The eastern hemisphere on Behaim’s globe of 1492, 

after the reduction to map form by Ravenstein... 63 
Sketch map by Bartholomew Columbus: The North 

nna g ie Ee a ik Vek a ale wide wanes 66 
Sketch map by Bartholomew Columbus: Asia....... 67 
Sketch map by Bartholomew Columbus: Africa... .. 68 
The North Atlantic area on the Cantino map of 1502.. 94 
The North Atlantic area on the Canerio map of about 

BR ay Ls ca dna Bid tech w wees 95 
The North Atlantic area on the Juan de la Cosa map 

eo EE Oa cia Peake blk Fa edn OG ole s Wek 100 
Cuba and Espafiola on the La Cosa map............ IOI 
The northwestern continental land on the Waldsee- 

oy: OT Gy a 110 
The northwestern continental land on the Waldsee- 

BP ea LS PO ed Sas oh pony oa 5 who wee Ke III 
The northwestern continental land on the Cantino 

SOM Shey AS aS Sa a a a ae 116 
The Beech western continental land on the Canerio 

Bode soc yc 8 Ss SS AIR a a co hey 
The land discovered by Cabot, from the La Cosa 

eM i Soucy ce ko Weal ewe hel 130 

PLATES 


Map showing the route of Columbus on his first voy- 
age across the Atlantic and return to illustrate his 
utilization of the winds and currents. Mean 
meridional scale, 1: 27,000,000 Pacing cote S0 
Map illustrating the geographical ideas of Columbus 
concerning the position of the eastern coast of Asia 
in relation to his fourth voyage. Mean meridio- 
nal scale, I: 107,000,000 PACIN ge on oe 





THE DETERMINATION OF THE LENGTH 
OF A TERRESTRIAL DEGREE 
BY COLUMBUS 


One of the essential questions which Christopher 
Columbus was called upon to face in formulating his 
project for a westward voyage was that of the distance 
to be traversed between Europe and Asia. The cir- 
cumference of the globe being taken as 360°, the prob- 
lem resolved itself into (1) the calculation of the length 
of a degree and (2) an estimate of the extension of 
Asia eastward. The present study is a discussion of 
the ideas of Columbus on these two points. 


CALCULATION OF THE LENGTH OF A DEGREE 


As is well known, Columbus took the length of a 
degree to be 56% Italian nautical miles.!. This er- 
roneous figure was not original with him; in fact, it» 
was a commonplace of medieval geography and goes 
back to the ninth century of our era, when the as- 
tronomers of the Caliph Al-Mamiin determined this 
value for the degree as a result of their historic survey 
on the plains of Sinjar.2 In the time of Colum- 
bus the estimate of 5624 miles was commonly associ- 

1See the section “The Statements of Columbus,” pp. 6-11, below. 
On the length of the Italian nautical mile see pp. 17-18, below. 

2J. T. Reinaud and Stanislas Guyard, transls.: Géographie d’Aboul- 


féda, traduite de l’arabe en francais, 2 vols. in three, Paris, 1848-83; 
reference in Vol, 1 (Introduction), pp. cclxix-cclxxiii. 


2 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


ated with the name of the Arab geographer Al-Far- 
ghani, known to Western Europe as Alfraganus. 
The question for consideration here does not concern 
either the origin or the currency of the figure given; 
it arises from the statement of Columbus that he 
had verified the estimate of the 5624 miles by deter- 
mining it himself.* The truth of this statement has 
been called in question by almost every modern critic 
on the ground that it was practically impossible for 
Columbus to have made the calculations necessary 
for the verification. What is implied in this criti- 
cism is that Columbus had not at his disposal the 
means elaborated in modern times for the measure- 
ment of a terrestrial degree; what is overlooked is 
that Columbus must have carried out his verifica- 
tion, if at all, by following the accepted practice of 
his own time. 


VIGNAUD’S CRITICISM OF COLUMBUS 


As a point of departure we may take the state- 
ment of Henry Vignaud, the latest writer to discuss 
the matter in detail. In his “Histoire critique de 
la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb”’ Vignaud 
says :4 

Nous arrivons a la plus importante des observations 
que Colomb dit avoir faites au cours de ses voyages de 
Guinée: celle qui aurait eu pour résultat la constatation 
que le degré terrestre ne mesurait, a l’équateur, que 


3 See, below, pp. 9-10, statement VII. 
42 vols., Paris, 1911; reference in Vol. I, pp. 63-67. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 3 


56 milles 24. Colomb est trés affirmatif sur ce point. 
I] dit qu’a plusieurs reprises il a fait des observations 
ayant cette détermination pour. objet; il assure que des 
cosmographes du roi de Portugal, envoyés dans ce but, 
ont constaté l’exactitude de cette mesure de 56 milles 24 
donnée originairement par l’astronome arabe Alfragan, 
et il affirme que lui aussi a fait cette vérification. II n’y 
a donc ici ni équivoque, ni incertitude; Colomb déclare 
nettement qu'il a mesuré la longueur du degré équatorial, 
et que cette longueur est de 56 milles 2%. 

Cette observation différe de toutes celles que Colomb 
aurait faites pendant son séjour en Portugal, et qui nous 
sont données comme |’ayant conduit a la formation de son 
grand dessein. La constatation que la zone torride, 
ainsi que la zone glaciale, étaient habitables, le fait que 
la région équatoriale était trés peuplée et toutes les autres 
observations auxquelles pouvaient donner lieu des voy- 
ages aux cétes de Guinée, n’étaient pas de nature a sug- 
gérer, méme a une imagination ardente, que les Indes et 
le royaume du Grand Khan devaient se trouver a prox- 
imité de la péninsule hispanique. Mais il n’en est pas 
de méme du fait établi scientifiquement que le degré 
équatorial équivaut a 56 milles 24, car ce fait seul con- 
tient, en substance, tout le systéme cosmographique que 
Colomb a formulé plus tard et sur lequel il dit avoir basé 
son projet. Si Colomb a fait cette observation, il faut 
reconnaitre que nous sommes ici en présence d’une cir- 
constance qui a pu contribuer a la formation d’un plan 
ayant pour objet le passage aux Indes par l’ouest. 

Mais Colomb a-t-il fait cette observation? I] semble 
qu'il suffise de poser cette question pour la résoudre. 
Supposer que Colomb, qui n’avait que des connaissances 
mathématiques élémentaires, qui ne possédait aucune 


4 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


instruction scientifique, était capable d’entrependre 
et de mener a bonne fin les opérations savantes néces- 
saires pour arriver a une détermination, méme approxi- 
mative, de la longueur d’un degré terrestre, c’est mécon- 
naitre la valeur des conditions qu’exige la solution d’un 
tel probléme, ou avancer une chose que contredit tout 
ce que nous savons aujourd’hui de la vie de Colomb. 

Il n’est pas nécessaire d’insister davantage sur ce point 
qui n’est pas controversé. Les critiques les plus autori- 
sés en ces matiéres ont déclaré, sans hésiter, que Colomb 
n’était pas capable de faire une opération de ce genre, et 
ses admirateurs les plus ardents n’ont pas osé s’élever 
contre cette assertion. 

Quelle autre conclusion peut-on tirer de l’exposé qui 
précéde, sinon celle que Colomb s’est attribué un mérite 
qu'il n’a pas eu, et qu’ici encore, comme dans d’autres 
circonstances que la critique a relevées, on surprend le 
grand Génois en flagrant délit d’une de ces inventions 
auxquelles il se plaisait quelquefois, et qu’on appelle par 
euphémisme des exagérations, mais qui sont si con- 
traires a la réalité des choses qu’il est difficile de les dis- 
tinguer de véritables mensonges. 

Cette conclusion, suffisamment justifiée par ce qui pré- 
céde, paraitra encore plus évidente quand nous montre- 
rons, dans un autre chapitre, ot Colomb a pris cette me- 
sure de la Terre qu’il donne pour avoir été vérifiée par 
lui. I] ne restera alors aucun doute qu’il n’est pas plus 
exact que Colomb ait mesuré la longueur du degré ter- 
restre, qu’il n’est vrai qu’il ait fait campagne pour le roi 
René, qu'il comptait des amiraux parmi ses proches, 
qu'il était d’une famille de marins et qu'il avait navigué 
toute sa vie, assertions qui viennent toutes de lui, et que 
l’on sait aujourd’hui étre contraires a la vérité. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 5 


Ce qu'il faut encore noter ici, c’est que, si l’on écarte 
des connaissances que Colomb aurait acquises par ses 
voyages aux cOtes d’Afrique, la constatation que le de- 
gré équatorial ne valait que 56 milles 24, ces voyages ne 
peuvent avoir exercé aucune influence sur la formation 
de l’idée qu’il dit avoir toujours été la sienne, que le pas- 
sage aux Indes par l’ouest était une chose faisable. On 
concoit trés bien, au contraire, que ces voyages aient eu 
pour Colomb le résultat indiqué par son fils, celui de lui 
avoir suggéré la réflexion que, puisque les Portugais 
avaient pu découvrir de nouvelles terres en s’avancant 
beaucoup vers le sud, on devait pouvoir en découvrir 
également en pénétrant plus avant dans les mers de 
louest. 


Vignaud bases his objection, implicitly, upon the 
assumption that Columbus claimed to have meas- 
ured the length of some particular degree. This, 
the present writer agrees, Columbus could not have 
done with the means at his disposal. Further, it is 
well known that the estimate of 5624 miles was 
common property long before the time of Columbus. 
With these two points established, the conclusion is 
simple: ‘“‘Colomb s’est attribué un mérite qu'il n’a 
pas eu,” or, as Humboldt gently puts it,®> he ob- 
tained the result ‘because he knew in advance what 
he wanted to find.’’ This is the point at which the 
matter rests. 


5 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l’histoire de la ‘géo- 
graphie du nouveau continent et des progrés de l’astronomie nautique aux 
quinziéme et seiziéme siécles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in Vol. 2, 
p. 324 (quoted by Vignaud, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 65, note 97). 


6 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Any critical consideration of the problem must 
begin with the fact that the value of 56% miles for 
the degree is erroneous and hence could not have 
been verified by Columbus if there had not been 
some special factors or elements involved in his mode 
of procedure. What is of the first importance to 
observe here is that the information upon which Co- 
lumbus was forced to rely and the methods followed 
in his day constitute elements which have hitherto 
been ignored in the discussion of the problem but 
which place his claim to have verified the length of a 
degree in an entirely new light. 


THE STATEMENTS OF COLUMBUS 


The more important statements of Columbus with 
reference to the length of a degree are mainly in the 
form of marginal notes which he had written in his 
own copies of a universal history and a cosmography 
current at that time. They are as follows: 


I 


. quod . . . rex Portugalie misit in Guinea 
anno Domini .1485. magister Ihosepius, fixicus eius & 
astrologus, [ad com|piendum altitudinem solis in totta 
Guinea; qui omnia adinplevit, & renunciavit dito sere- 
nissimo regi, me presente, quod . . . alliis in die .xi. mar- 
cii invenit se distare ab equinoxiali gradus .v. minute in 
insula vocata ‘‘de los Ydolos,’’ que est prope [sierrJa 
Lioa. & hoc cum maxima diligencia procuravit. postea 
vero sepe ditus serenissimus rex misit in Guinea in alliis 
locis. postea. . . & semper invenit concordari com ipso 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 7 


magistro Iosepio, quare sertum habeo esse castrum Mine 
sub linea equinoxiali.6 (That . . . the king of Portugal 
sent to Guinea, in the year of our Lord 1485, Master Jo- 
seph, his physician and astrologer, to ascertain the eleva- 
tion of the sun in diverse places in Guinea; the said Jo- 
seph accomplished this and reported to the said most 
serene king, I myself being present, that among other 
things on the 11th of March he found that he was distant 
from the equator one degree five minutes on an island 
called ‘‘Los Ydolos,” which is near Sierra Leone, and he 
made this observation with the very greatest of care. 
Moreover, following this, the said most serene king sent 
to Guinea in various other places . ... and always he 
found agreement with Master Joseph himself. This is 
why I hold for certain that the fort of El Mina is on the 
equator.) 


IT 


Respondet quolibet gradus miliariis .5624., idest .14. 
leuce et .23. pasus.’ (Each degree corresponds to 56% 
miles, that is 14 leagues and 23 passus.) 


ee 


Nota quod hoc anno de .88., in mense decembri, apu- 
lit in Ulixiponam Bartholomeus Didacus, capitaneus 
trium caravelarum, quem miserat serenissimus rex Por- 
tugallie in Guinea ad tentandum terram; & renunciavit 
ipso serenissimo regi prout navigaverit ultra yan naviga- 


6 Postille alla ‘‘Historia rerum ubique gestarum” di Pio II. In: Rac- 
colta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana 
pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell’Amegica, 6 parts in 14 vols., 
Rome, 1892-96; reference in Part I, Vol. 2, p. 369, No. 860. 

7 Postille ai trattati di P. d’Ailly: ‘‘Imago Mundi,” zbzd., Part I, Vol. 2, 


p. 374, No. 4. 


8 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


tum leuche .600., videlicet, .450. ad austrum, et .250. 
ad aquilonem, usque uno promontorium per ipsum nomi- 
natum ‘‘cabo de Boa Esperanga,’’ quem in Agesinba esti- 
mamus; quique in eo loco invenit se distare per astrola- 
bium ultra linea equinociali gradus .45., quem ultimum 
locum distat ab Ulixbona leuche .3100. quem viagium 
pictavit & scripsit de leucha in leucha in una ‘carta navi- 
gacionis, ut occuli visui ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. 
in quibus omnibus interfui.8 (Note that this year 88, 
in the month of December, Bartholomew Dias returned 
to Lisbon, the captain of three caravels, which the most 
serene king of Portugal had sent to Guinea to discover 
land; and he reported to that most serene king that he 
had sailed 600 leagues beyond the farthest region hitherto 
navigated, namely 450 to the south and 250 to the east, 
to a cape named by him “Cabo de Boa Esperanga,’ 
which we think is in Agesinba; and by the astrolabe he 
found himself in that place to be beyond the equator 45 
degrees, which farthest point is distant from Lisbon 
3100 leagues. He pictured and wrote down the voyage 
from league to league in a chart of navigation, that he 
might show the voyage by eyesight to that most serene 
king. In all of this I was present.) 


IV 


Quolibet gradus habet miliaria .5624., et sic habet 
totus circuitus terre .20400.° (Each degree has 5624 
miles, and thus the whole circumference of the earth is 
20,400 miles.) 


8 Ibid., pp. 376-377, No. 23. 
9 Ibid., p. 378, No. 28. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 


V 


Actor De spera concordat in latitudine climatum, et 
non in circuitu terre. Nota quod quolibet gradu equi- 
noxialis realiter respondit miliaria .5624.!° (The author 
of ‘“‘De spera”’ agrees in the latitude of the climates, and 
not in the circumference of the earth. Note that each 
degree on the equator really corresponds to 5624 miles.) 


VI 


Nota quod latitudo climatum quem hic videbis, in 
qua omnes actores concordant, respondet quolibet gradus 
miliaria .5624. & hec est realis, reliqua vero vocalis.! 
(Note that the latitude of the climates which you will 
see here agrees in all the writers; each degree corresponds 
to 5624 miles. And this is a fact, and whatever anyone 
says to the contrary is only words.) 


Vil 


Nota quod sepe navigando ex Ulixbona ad austrum 
in Guinea, notavi cum diligentia viam, ut solent nau- 
cleres & malinerios, & postea accepi altitudinem solis 
cum quadrantem & aliis instrumentis plures vices, & in- 
veni concordare cum Alfragano, videlicet respondere 
quolibet gradu miliaria .5624. quare ad hanc mensuram 
fidem adhibendam est; igitur posimus dicere quod cir- 
cuitus terre sub arcu equinociali est .20400. miliaria. 
similiter quod id invenit magister Yosepius fixicus & 
astrologus, & alii plures, misi solum ad hoc per serenissi- 
mum regem Portugalie, idque potest videre quisquam 
mentientem per cartas navigationum, mensurando de 


10 Tbid., p. 378, No. 30. 
1 Tbid., p. 378, No. 31. 


10 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


septentrione in austro per Occeanum extra omnem ter- 
ram per lineam rectam, quod bene potest incipiendo in 
Anglia vel Hibernia per lineam rectam ad austrum usque 
in Guinea.” (Note that in sailing frequently from Lis- 
bon to Guinea in a southerly direction, I noted with care 
the route followed, according to the custom of pilots and 
mariners; and afterward I took the elevation of the sun 
many times with quadrant and other instruments, and 
I found agreement with Alfraganus, that is to say, each 
degree corresponds to 5624 miles, wherefore credence 
should be given to this measure. Therefore we are able 
to say that the circumference of the earth on the equator 
is 20,400 miles, likewise that Master Joseph, the physi- 
cian and astrologer, found this, as did many others sent 
solely for this by the most serene king of Portugal; and 
anyone can see that there is an error in the navigation 
charts by measuring from north to south across the ocean 
beyond all land in a straight line, which can easily be 
done by starting in England or Ireland with a straight 
line to the south as far as Guinea.) 


Vill 


Unus gradus respondet miliariis .5624. et circuitus 
terre est leuche .5100. hec est veritas.% (One degree 
corresponds to 5624 miles, and the circumference of the 
earth is 5100 leagues. This is the truth.) 


IX 


El mundo es poco; el injuto d’ ello es seis partes, la 
séptima sdlamente cubierta de agua. la experiencia ia 
esta vista, i la escrivi por otras letras, i con adorna- 


12 [bid., p. 407, No. 490. 
13 [bid., p. 407, No. 491. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE i 


miento de la Sacra Escritura, con el sitio del Parafso 
terrenal que la sancta Iglesia aprueva. digo que el mundo 
no es tan grande como dice el vulgo, i que un grado de 
la equinogial esta .56. millas i dos tercios; presto se 
tocara con el dedo. (The world is but small; the 
dry part of it is six parts, the seventh only is covered 
by water. Experience has shown it, and I have discussed 
it in other letters, with quotations from the Holy Scrip- 
ture, with the situation of the terrestrial paradise, which 
the Holy Church has approved. I say that the world 
is not so large as the common crowd says it is, and that 
one degree on the equator is fifty-six miles and two- 
thirds. This is a fact that one can touch with one’s own 
fingers.) 


ANALYSIS OF THE STATEMENTS OF COLUMBUS 


It will be observed that several of the passages 
quoted (II, IV, V, VI, and VIII) are mere reitera- 
tions of the assertion that a degree is equal to 56% 
miles. Quotation III is a note on the Dias expe- 
dition to the Cape of Good Hope and is only of in- 
cidental value. The last extract, IX, which is from 
the letter of July 7, 1503, contains the added informa- 
tion that the world is smaller than popularly supposed ; 
the notion that six-sevenths of it is dry land is de- 
rived from the Books of Esdras. 

144 Letter of July 7, 1503, on the fourth voyage, in Raccolta, Part I, 
Vol. 2, pp. 175-205; reference on p. 184. The same letter in modernized 
Spanish, with English translation, in R. H. Major, transl. and edit.: 
Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, With Other Original Docu- 


ments, Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World, 2nd edit., 
Hakluyt Soc. Publs., tst Series, Vol. 43, London, 1870, pp. 183-184. 


12 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


The important notes are those numbered I and 
VII. In neither of these is there anything to imply, 
or that could be construed to imply, that Columbus 
made his verification of a degree on the equator, 
measuring from east to west—a true degree of equa- 
torial longitude. Such an operation was beyond his 
ability or that of anyone in his time. The imper- 
fection of the devices for measuring time at the end 
of the fifteenth century was fatal to any nice calcu- 
lation of longitude from eclipses. On the other hand, 
note VII states distinctly that the measurement was 
made between Lisbon and Guinea. 

An examination of the notes, taken together, brings 
out the following points which bear upon the ques- 
tion under discussion: (a) the Los Idolos Islands are 
in latitude 1° 5’ N.; (0) the starting point of the reck- 
oning is Lisbon; (c) the navigation is from north to 
south; (d) a degree equals 5623 miles. Let it be 
assumed, for the moment, that Columbus was sincere 
in his assertion that he had actually made the verifi- 
cation which he asserts. It will then appear that 
the points just stated constitute all the facts essential 
to the determination of the value of a degree in ac- 
cordance with the best methods pursued before the 
discovery of America. 


15 Nor is there anything in the notes to support the contention of 
Sophus Ruge (Columbus, 2nd edit., Berlin, 1902, p. 53) that Columbus 
claimed to have made an observation for position and then, noting the 
distance and sailing one degree by astronomical observation, determined 
the value. Cf. Vignaud, op. c#t., Vol. 1, p. 66, note 97, 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 13 


THE METHOD EMPLOYED BY COLUMBUS 


In the first place, it should be recalled that Eratos- 
thenes!* had measured the length of a degree. In 
order to do this he had determined astronomically 
the latitude of two places (Syene, in Upper Egypt, 
and Alexandria), supposed to be on the same merid- 
ian. The distance between these two points (5000 
stadia) was measured; and with these data the value 
of a degree was determined by a simple operation in 
arithmetic. The astronomers of the Caliph Al-Ma- 
mtin proceeded in an exactly similar way. They de- 
termined, by astronomical observations, the latitude 
of a given point. They then traveled along the 
meridian of that point for a measured distance. A 
second observation was taken; and from these data 
the value of 5624 miles for a degree was obtained.!” 

The significant matter, for this discussion, in the 
two cases mentioned is that the original method of 
measuring a degree was to determine astronomically 
the position of two points on the same meridian, 
measure the actual distance between them, and cal- 
culate the length of a degree by arithmetical compu- 
tation. The contention of the present study is that 
Columbus followed this procedure in his verification 


16H. H. Bunbury: A History of Ancient Geography, 2 vols., London, 
1879; reference in Vol. 1, p. 621. 

17 The accounts of this famous survey are not altogether clear. Ap- 
parently several surveys were made, and the values 56, 56 %, 57, and 
57% were obtained—56 % being the figure more commonly accepted 
(Géographie d’Aboulféda, Vol. 2, Part I, p. 17; Joachim Lelewel: Géo- 
graphie du Moyen Age, 4 vols., Epilogue, and atlas, Brussels, 1850-57; 
reference in Vol. I, pp. xxii—xxiv. 


14 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


of the length of a degree and that the erroneous in- 
formation available in his day actually led him to 
arrive at the old figure of 5624 miles. 

At first sight, the opportunities open to Columbus 
for determining the length of a degree may well have 
seemed to promise accurate results. In the earlier 
instances cited the observed points were relatively 
close—in the case of Eratosthenes, the interval was 
about seven degrees; in the other, much less. Of 
course, the shorter the distance, the greater became 
the importance of any error.. For the redetermi- 
nation by Columbus, on the other hand, a much 
greater interval was available—approximately forty 
degrees, according to the observations of the Portu- 
guese. In fact, with the exploration of the west 
coast of Africa it became possible, for the first time 
in history, to carry out observations and measure- 
ments on a grand scale and over an extended interval 
practically free from obstructions. Hence, it is ob- 
vious, great confidence might be placed in the results 
obtained if, under the new conditions, the old value 
should be arrived at. 

In the new determination the two fixed points 
were Lisbon and the Los Idolos Islands (or Isles de 
Los; off Konakry, French Guinea). The distance 
must be presumed to have been measured by re- 
peated dead reckonings, as this was the regular prac- 
tice of the time. All that remained for Columbus to 
do, in order to verify the length of a degree, was to 
make a simple arithmetical calculation. In concrete 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 






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16 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 





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LENGTH OF A DEGREE iby) 


terms: Ptolemy’s map, Rome, 1490,'!8 gave Oliosipo 
(Lisbon) as 40° 15’ N. (see Fig. 1); Behaim, 1492," 
placed it slightly above 40° N. (Fig. 2); Abulfeda,?° 
in his “Geography,” had placed it at 42° 40’. The 
Los Idolos Islands were, as we have seen (p. 6) 
placed at 1° 5’ by Joseph. For comparison, the data 
may be stated in the form: 


Fifteenth-Century Estimates Modern” 


Lisbon Homers! No. a8r 42 ON 
Los Idolos bat 5c 0N Opa0) oN 
Difference BO 10" 20.7 127 


It is not known what distance in miles Columbus 
reckoned between these two places; I shall, there- 
fore, take the distance as based on modern observa- 
tions. If we take the accepted value of 111,121 
meters for a mean meridional degree and neglect the 
fact that the two points are not on the same merid- 
ian,22 we obtain a distance between the points men- 
tioned of 3,244,769 meters. The Italian nautical 


18 A. E. Nordenskiédld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of 
Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekel6f and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 
1659, Fl. 3. 

19 —. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim: His Life and His Globe, London, 
1908, with facsimile of gores of globe; reference on sheet 1, gore D. 

20 Géographie d’Aboulféda, Vol. 2, Part I, p. 244. 

21 Lisbon from ‘‘The American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac for 
the Year 1925,’’ Washington, 1923, p. 676. Los Idolos from map of the 
islands in 1:25,000 constituting U. S. Hydrographic Office Chart No. 
2288, Washington, I9g10. 

22 Lisbon is 9° 11’ W. of Greenwich, Los Idolos about 13° 48’ W. 


18 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


mile used by Columbus contained 1480 meters.” 
We have, then, the following: 


3,244,769 meters + 1480 meters = 2192.4 Italian nauti- 
cal miles 

+: 39% (39° 10’) = 56 — Italian nau- 

tical miles to a degree 


On the basis of contemporary knowledge, there- 
fore, the method indicated in the notes of Columbus 
could have given no other figure than a close approxi- 
mation to 56% miles for the value of a degree. 


CRITICISM OF CONTEMPORARY CHARTS 
BY COLUMBUS 


In note VII, quoted above (p. 10), Columbus 
makes a criticism of existing charts which bears upon 
the point at issue. ‘Anyone can see,’”’ he remarks, 
‘that there is an error in the navigation charts by 
measuring from north to south. . . (from) England 
or Ireland. . . as far as Guinea.” 

Now, it is a well-known fact that the portolano 
(navigation) charts were quite accurate for the Medi- 


22 Hermann Wagner: Die Rekonstruktion der Toscanelli-Karte vom 
J. 1474 und die Pseudo-Facsimilia des Behaim-Globus vom J. 1492, 
Nachrichten K6én. Gesell. der Wiss. zu Gottingen: Philolog.-Hist. Klasse, 
1894, pp. 208-312; reference on p. 225 (quoted in Henry Vignaud: Tos- 
canelli and Columbus, London, 1902, p. 200; A. E. Nordenskidld: 
Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions, 
transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, p. 23). Fora critical discussion 
of the length of the nautical mile, see Hermann Wagner: Zur Geschichte 
der Seemeile, Annal. der Hydrogr. und Marit. Meteorol. (Hamburg), Vol. 
AI, 1913, Pp. 393-413 and 441-450; on the Italian nautical mile see 
PP. 397-400. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 19 


terranean but were far from maintaining the same 
character for the extra-Mediterranean, or Atlantic, 
area.** An estimate of the relative error may readily 
be obtained by comparing the portolano charts with 
modern maps. ; 

For this purpose, I have taken the distance in 
miles from Land’s End, Cornwall, to the Strait of 
Gibraltar (both on the same meridian), and that 
from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Alexandretta cor- 
ner of the Mediterranean (both nearly on the same 
parallel). The Mediterranean extends from longi- 
tude 5° 31’ W. to 36° 10’ E., a distance of 2333 miles, 
reckoning 56 statute miles to a degree on the parallel 
of 36°. The Strait of Gibraltar is situated in lati- 
tude 35° 57’ N.; Land’s End, 50° 17’ N. approxi- 
mately. The difference is 14° 20’, or 991 miles. The 
ratio of the distance, obtained by dividing 991 by 
2333, is .425. For comparison, we may calculate the 
same ratio from a series of portolano charts and 
mappemondes: 


24 Nordenskiéld, Periplus, Pl. 4; Lelewel, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 33; E. L. 
Stevenson: Portolan Charts: Their Origin and Characteristics, Publs. 
Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 82, New York, 1911, pp. 19-20. 


20 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Length of | Land’s End 
Mediterranean to Gibraltar 


in inches in inches Ratio 
Catalan atlas, 13757 247 S275) eee 
Fra Mauro, 1459 12°35 4.55.34 
Genoese mappemonde, 1457?’ 7.25 2.40 33% 
Catalan mappemonde, 145078 9.50 3.62 381 
Jachobus Giroldis, 142679 7 25 2,87. -.\33065 
Guglielmo Soleri, 1385*° 9.00 3.06 hao 
Freducci, 14974 14.75 5.75 389 
Juan de la Cosa, 1500” 5.87 2.2053 rasa 
Anonymous fifteenth-century 
portolano* 16.00 6.06" — 2475 
Average .369 


If it be assumed that the scale of the Mediterra- 
nean is approximately correct in the portolano charts, 


2 J. A. C. Buchon and J: Tastu: Notice d’un atlas en langue catalane 
manuscrit de l’an 1375, in: Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la 
Bibliotheque du Roi et autres bibliothéques, Vol. 14, Part II, Paris, 1841, 
pp. I-1I52, with an outline facsimile of the atlas in six plates; reference 
on Pls. 3-4. (A photographic reproduction of the atlas is given in ‘“‘Choix 
de documents géographiques conservés a la Bibliothéque Nationale,” 
Paris, 1883, Pls. 9-20, and also in Nordenskidld’s Periplus, Pls. 11-14.) 

2% [M. F.] Santarem: Atlas composé de mappemondes, de portulans, 
et de cartes hydrographiques et historiques depuis le VIS jusqu’au XVII* 
siécle . . . devant servir de preuves a l’histoire de la cosmographie et 
de la cartographie pendant le Moyen Age . » «> PAIS, 1842-53 fis. 
43-48 (Quaritch’s notation). Photographic copy was used for measure- 
ments. 

27 EK. L. Stevenson: Genoese World Map, 1457. Facsimile and text, 
Publs. Hispanic Soc. of Amer. No. 83, New York, 1912. 

28 Konrad Kretschmer: Die katalanische Weltkarte der Biblioteca 
Estense zu Modena, Zeitschr. Gesell. fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin, Vol. 32, 
1897, pp. 65-111 and 191-218; reference on PI. 4. 

29-33 Nordenskidld, Periplus, Pls. 4, 18, 22, 43, 19. 


Ee 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE AA 


then the ratio, in the Atlantic area, between the dis- 
tance indicated in these charts and that based on 
modern maps would be as .369 to .425, or .868. It 
follows that, if the distance, expressed in degrees, be- 
tween Land’s End and the Strait of Gibraltar were the 
same in each case, the scale of statute miles to the de- 
gree would be reduced from 69 to 59.89, or (59.89 x 
ge=) 65.1 Italian nautical miles. However, as 
indicated above, the actual difference is 14° 20’, 
whereas the Ptolemy maps of 1490 of England and 
Spain* show a difference of 16° 23’. This would 
reduce the calculation in the proportion of 14° 20’ 
to 16° 23’, or .874, bringing the estimate of Italian 
nautical miles to the degree to 56.89—again a close 
approximation to 56%. 

While calling attention to the fact that there was an 
error in the navigation charts, Columbus does not 
state what in his judgment the nature of this error 
might be. The comment which he makes (note 
VII, above) refers, however, to a passage in which 
the estimate of 56 24 miles is attributed to Alfraganus. 
It is not improbable, therefore, that Columbus had 
reference to the difference which has just been pointed 
out. If so, there was no escaping the conclusion, 
if the Mediterranean scale was correct and if the lati- 
tudes were correct, that 5624 miles represented a 
close approximation to the length of a degree. 





34 Nordenskiédld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 2: Bolerium Promét. (Land’s 
End), 52° 30’; Pl. 3 (our Fig. 1): northern coast of Strait of Gibraltar, 
36° 7’. 


22 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


THE SOURCE OF ERROR IN THE CALCULATION 
OF COLUMBUS 


In the argument presented, there are two points 
which call for further comment. 

As stated above, we do not know what estimate 
Columbus used for the distance between Lisbon and 
the Los Idolos Islands. My defense for introducing 
a modern measurement to supply this gap is that we 
have ample evidence in the portolano charts of the 
ability of fifteenth-century seamen to estimate dis- 
tances by dead reckoning. The portolano charts 
were made by checking direction and distance.** 
It should be borne in mind that these charts were the 
most accurate maps produced before or during the 
time of Columbus. Moreover, the measurements 
of the portolano charts were based on the sea, not on 
the land**—-a point of special significance when con- 
sidered in relation to the problem before Columbus. 

The second point is that the astronomical determi- 
nations of the positions dealt with are wrong. This, 
however, is the essential factor in the whole discussion. 
The error of Columbus in believing that he had veri- 
fied the old estimate of 5624 miles to the degree 
springs directly from the wide inaccuracy of these 
determinations. Columbus himself used the best 
information available in his day. Why the observa- 
tions should have been so far in error is not for this 
study to discuss; but the unquestionable fact is that 


35 Lelewel, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 45. 
86 Ibid., pp. 47-48. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 23 


many errors did occur. As a result geographers em- 
bodying in their maps the information which came 
to them differed greatly in their latitudes of places. 

There seem to be four well-defined stages in the 
evolution of the maps of Africa as regards the posi- 
tion in which they place the equator in relation to 
the coast of Upper Guinea, 1.e. the coast limiting 
the Gulf of Guinea on the north. 

Ptolemy (1490)%7? had represented the equator as 
crossing Africa 10 degrees south of the Canaries and 
indicated no such feature as the Gulf of Guinea. A 
relationship exists between the Ptolemy conception 
and, that in the maps of Waldseemiiller (1507),'3 
Glareanus (1510),3® Petrus Apianus (1520),*° and the 
Honterus (1542).4' The last three are derived from 
the Waldseemiiller map, and all four represent the 
equator as crossing Africa about 10 degrees north of 
the Upper Guinea coast. The Catalan world map 
of 1450 also, if a legend off Cape Verde is correctly 
interpreted” to read ‘This cape is the end of the 
land. . . . This line is on the equinox . . .,’’ repre- 
sents the equator crossing well north of a gulf which 
may correspond to the Gulf of Guinea. 


37 Nordenskiéld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 1 (our Fig. 3). 

38 Joseph Fischer and F. R. von Wieser: The Oldest Map With the 
Name America of the Year 1507 and the Carta Marina of the Year 1516 
by M. Waldseemiiller (Ilacomilus), text in English and German and 
facsimile of both maps, Innsbruck, 1903. 

39 Nordenskidld, Periplus, p. 173. 

40 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 38. 

41 Nordenskidld, Periplus, p. 149. 

42 Kretschmer, Die Katalanische Weltkarte, pp. 103-104. 


24 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


The concept represented by these maps seems to 
be the oldest one. It is followed by another, which 
was the concept entertained by Columbus, wherein 
the equator touches or comes very near to the 
coast of Upper Guinea. The maps of this type 
are the Contarini-Roselli (1506),“ Bernardus Sylva- 
nus (1511),44 Ptolemy (1513), Boulenger (1514),* 
Reisch (1515),47 Laurentius Frisius (1522),48 Ptolemy 
(1525),49 Thorne (1527),5° Bordone (1528),°! Gry- 
naeus (1532), and Vopel (1543). Three of these 
indicate the equator crossing the land just north of 
the Gulf of Guinea. The others all indicate the 
equator as either just grazing the coast or passing 
through the gulf very near the coast. 

The third step in the transition from the very poor 
Ptolemy concept of Africa appears in one map, that 
known as the Hamy (1502) map,*4 which shows two 
equators, one marked heavily in the Indian Ocean 
and crossing the Gulf of Guinea region as the equator 


43 Edward Heawood: A Hitherto Unknown World Map of A.D. 1506, 
Geogr. Journ., Vol. 62, 1923, pp. 279-293, with facsimile of map. 

44 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 33. 

45 Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerikas in ihrer Bedeutung 
fiir die Geschichte des Weltbildes, text and atlas, Berlin, 1892; reference 
inatias, Fl. t2: 

M Tbtid:, PISS 

at Tbhid., PI. 70. 

48 Ibid., Pl. 14. 

49 Nordenski6dld, Periplus, p. 177. 

50 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 41. 

51 Jbtd., Pl. 39. 

82 Tbid., Pl. 42. 

53 [bid., Pl. 4o. 

54 Nordenskidld, Periplus, Pl. 45. 


ee 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE pe 


does in the second type just described, where it is 
lightly marked. The other equator is marked 
heavily in the Atlantic and does not appear in the 
Indian Ocean. This second equator bears approxi- 
mately the true relation to the Gulf of Guinea. 

The Hamy map is only a step from the fourth 
type, which is approximately correct in its delinea- 
tion of the relation of the equator to the Gulf of 
Guinea. This type is represented by the Behaim 
‘globe of 1492" (Fig. 2) and the La Cosa map of 
1500.°6 

The series of maps have a double bearing on the 
Columbus project: (1) The second group furnishes in- 
dubitable evidence that the best cartographers in 
Europe long accepted those astronomical observa- 
tions which placed the equator in substantially the 
same relation to Guinea as Columbus placed it. It 
would, therefore, appear from this evidence that 
there was thought to be a substantial basis for ob- 
servations similar to those on which Columbus re- 
lied. (2) The maps also furnish a test of Vignaud’s 
contention®’ that it was after his discovery of 
America that Columbus formulated the statement 
of his grand plan as that of reaching the Indies by 
going west. Columbus visited the Guinea country 
in the period when the second of the above map 
series was in vogue and during the period when the 

6 Ravenstein, op. cit. 

66 Nordenskiéld, Periplus, Pl. 43. For the primary source see below, 


p. 59, footnote 8. 
57 Vignaud, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 344. 


26 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


third and fourth series were first appearing. It is 
in the light of this last fact that Columbus’ state- 
ment VI (p. 9) should be regarded: ‘‘ Note that the 
latitude of the climates which you will see here agrees 
in all the writers; each degree corresponds to 562% 
miles. And this is a fact, and whatever anyone says 
to the contrary is only words.’’ The new observa- 
tions taken about the time, or soon after the time, 
that Columbus made his last voyage to Guinea were 
destroying the basis of his calculation of the length 
of a degree. Columbus had no faith in the new ob- 
servations; this would not probably have been the 
case had he been in Guinea to make them himself. 
Therefore it would appear that Columbus formu- 
lated his basic concepts before he left Portugal and 
not after his discovery of America. 

In vindication of Columbus in thus accepting an 
erroneous estimate, it should be remembered that 
even an approximately correct value for the length 
of a degree was not available until the determination 
made by Jean Picard in 1669-1670.°§ A few years 
before this date, Newton, working on the problem of 
gravitation, had employed a value of approximately 
60 statute miles, instead of 69+, thus underestimat- 
ing the size of the earth nearly one-seventh as com- 
pared with the underestimate of one-fourth by Co- 
lumbus. 


58 [Louis] Vivien de Saint-Martin: Histoire de la géographie et des 
découvertes géographiques depuis les temps les plus reculés jusqu’a nos 
jours, text and atlas, Paris, 1873-74; reference in text, pp. 417-419. 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE Zid, 


ESTIMATE OF THE EXTENSION OF AsIA EASTWARD 

We may now turn to examine the relation of the 
measurement of a degree to the actual undertaking 
of Columbus. In the quotation given above (p. 3), 
Vignaud says: 

This fact alone [that the degree is equal to 5624 miles] 
contains in substance the entire cosmographical system 
which Columbus formulated later, and on which he said 
he had based his project. If Columbus made this ob- 
servation it is necessary to recognize that we are here in 
the presence of a fact which may have contributed to the 
formation of a plan having for its object the passage by 
the west to the Indies. 

The value of 5624 miles for a degree is, indeed, the 
key to the whole project of Columbus, for he does 
not appear to have used or to have had any informa- 
tion bearing on the extension of Asia eastward which 
was not commonly available to his contemporaries. 
The principal sources of his knowledge were Marco 
Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and Ptolemy.*° 

The differences of opinion discernible in the fif- 
teenth century in regard to the position of the east 
coast of Asia resulted from different valuations of the 
length of a degree. Thus the question of the exten- ’ 
sion of Asia to the east is not a separate problem but 
is an integral part and, indeed, the conclusion of the 
discussion in regard to the length of a degree. 


59 Ravenstein, op. cit., p. 71; Andrés Bernaldez: Historia de los Reyes 
Catélicos D. Fernando y Da. Isabel, 2 vols., Seville, 1870 (also Granada, 
1856), reference in Vol. 1, pp. 357-358; Bartolomé de las Casas: Historia 
de las Indias, 5 vols., Madrid, 1875—76, reference in Book I, Chs. 5-13 
(Vol. 1, pp. 55-102). 


28 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


A résumé of the history of the measurement of a 
degree is not necessary here. Suffice it to say that, 
among the Arabs,®® Ptolemy’s degree was reckoned 
at 6624 miles, or 22 2/9 parasangs. We have seen 
(p. 13) that as a result of the measurement under the 
Caliph Al-Mamiin it was estimated at 18 8/9 para- 
sangs, or 5624 miles. From these figures there re- 
sulted varying estimates of the size of the earth. 
Thus, the Catalan atlas of 1375 gives the circumfer- 
ence as 20,052 miles;*! the Fra Mauro map, 1459, 
gives it as 22,500 to 24,000 miles;* Columbus rated 
it at 20,400, according to the marginalia (notes IV, 
VII, VIII) quoted above. Of these estimates, that 
of 6624 miles to a degree, or 24,000 miles circumfer- 
ence, is the highest, and it would seem to be in 
comparison and in contrast with this figure that 
Columbus makes his reiterated statement. 

According to a legend on the Bartholomew Colum- 
bus map of ca. 1503 (Fig. 7), Columbus and Mari- 
nus of Tyre reckoned the distance from Cape St. 
Vincent to Cattigara at 15 hours, or 225 degrees. 
Ptolemy made the same distance 12 hours, or 180 
degrees. Vignaud criticizes Columbus for going 


60 Géographie d’Aboulféda, Vol. 1 (Introduction), pp. cclxviii ff.; Vol. 
2, Part I, pp. 17-18; Lelewel, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. xxii—xxiv; Vivien de 
Saint-Martin, op. cit., pp. 250-253. 

61 Buchon and Tastu, op. cit., p. 7. 

62 Placido Zurla: Il mappamondo di Fra Mauro, Venice, 1806, p. 21. 

6 F. R. von Wieser: Die Karte des Bartolomeo Colombo iiber die 
vierte Reise des Admirals, text and facsimile of three maps, reprint from 
Mitt. des Inst. fiir Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Innsbruck, 1893 
(maps reproduced in Nordenskiédld, Periplus, pp. 167-169). 


LENGTH OF A DEGREE 29 


back to Marinus of Tyre, after Ptolemy had so con- 
clusively demonstrated the inaccuracy of his mode 
of reckoning. This criticism seems to me to miss 
the point: Columbus did not adopt the 225 degrees 
of Marinus because he rejected the correction of 
Ptolemy. On the contrary, he made the correction 
of Ptolemy the basis of his own calculation. Ptolemy 
counted 180 degrees from the Insulae Fortunatae to 
the eastern edge of the known world. He bounded 
the Indian Sea with land on all sides. In the time 
of Columbus the work of the medieval travelers* 
was interpreted to have added extensively to the east 
of Ptolemy’s known world. Behaim, in his globe of 
1492® (Fig. 4), followed Ptolemy as far as the latter 
went with the map of southern Asia, placing Cat- 
tigara on the 180th meridian; but, in addition, he 
estimated the new East, to the eastern end of Mangi, 
at about 60 degrees. The total known world had 
thus an extent of 240 degrees from west to east. This 
estimate of 240 degrees, reckoned at 6624 miles to 
the degree, equaled 16,000 miles at the equator. 
Now, Columbus, as we have seen, accepted the value 
of 5624 miles to the degree; consequently, dividing 
16,000 by 562%, he obtained the figure of 283 for the 
number of degrees in. the known world. Thus he 
agreed with Marinus. The distance to the far East 
was estimated at substantially 45 degrees more than 
by his contemporaries. In so much he reckoned the 
world smaller than other people considered it. 


64 Lelewel, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 125-126. 
65 Ravenstein, op. cit., Map 2 and facsimile of globe, sheets 2, 3, and 4. 


30 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


The method here employed by Columbus was ex- 
actly the same as that followed by Marinus of Tyre 
in reducing his itinerary distances** eastward to de- 
grees and as that used by Ptolemy in correcting Mari- 
nus: the distance to the east was calculated in miles 
(or their equivalent), and the mileage distance was 
then reduced to degrees by division, employing for 
the degree a value determined by a measurement 
from north to south. Columbus thus restored to the 
180 degrees of Ptolemy the 45 degrees the latter had 
deducted from the calculation of Marinus. In this 
way eastern Asia was placed at a relatively moder- 
ate distance west of Spain. One of the strange coin- 
cidences in the case is that the result obtained was 
a surprisingly close approximation to the position of 
the new lands in America. 


CONCLUSION 


In conclusion, the writer submits that the evidence 
shows Columbus to have been painstaking in his in- 
quiries and to have utilized the best information 
available in his time. He was in error; but his errors, 
as has been shown, were of such a character as to 
argue convincingly for his sincerity. The fact is that 
a curious set of coincident inaccuracies gave Colum- 
bus every reason to believe that he had actually veri- 
fied the old estimate of 5624 miles to a degree. 


66 Bunbury, op. czt., Vol. 2, p. 549. 


TiaPsROULE OF COLUMBUS 
ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE AS EVIDENCE 
OF HIS KNOWLEDGE OF THE 
WINDS AND CURRENTS 
Oren ALLANTIC 


It has been said that there were no scientific con- 
siderations back of the voyage of 1492.! On the con- 
trary the motivating cause of the expedition, in this 


1 “‘Rien n’indique que des considérations d’ordre scientifique aient été 
pour quelque chose dans I|’entreprise de 1492, tandis qu'on voit clairement 
que pour Colomb, comme pour Pinzon et comme pour tous ceux qui s’y 
_ engagérent, il s'agissait de la découverte d’iles et de terres nouvelles dont 
on espérait tirer de grands avantages, et a l’existence desquelles on croyait 
pour des raisons qui n’avaient rien de scientifique’? (Henry Vignaud: 
Histoire critique de la grande entreprise de Christophe Colomb, 2 vols., 
Paris, 1911; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 197-198). 

“Colomb avait donc des indications, cela ne peut faire l’objet d’aucun 
doute. Que ces indications fussent matérielles, réelles, c’est-a-dire d’ordre 
pratique et non dérivées de considérations théoriques, cela est également 
certain. Elles étaient erronées, évidemment, puisque Colomb n’a pas 
trouvé, ou il croyait qu’elle était située, l’ile ou les terres qu’il cherchait; 
mais elles avaient, néanmoins, un caractére de précision qui lui inspirait 
une confiance absolue, restée chez lui inébranlable, malgré les déceptions 
qu'il éprouva au cours de son exploration, et sans laquelle il n’aurait pas 
fait sa grande découverte’’ (ibid., pp. 206-207). 

‘“‘Remarquons bien que l’authenticité de cette histoire particuliére 
importe peu, au fond. Ce qui est essentiel, ce qu’on doit tenir pour cer- 
tain, c’est que Colomb avait des renseignements d’une nature particuliére 
qui lui paraissaient absolument sirs, et que c’est la confiance qu’il avait 
dans leur exactitude qui explique ses démarches persistantes, au milieu 
des circonstances les plus décourageantes, et ses exigences, autrement in- 
compréhensibles. Que ces renseignements lui vinssent du pilote sans nom 
ou de toute autre maniére, cela ne change rien a cette conclusion suggérée 
par tant de faits concordants: que le projet présenté aux Rois Catholiques 
et accepté par eux ¢tait basé sur des données matérielles et non sur des 
conceptions d’ordre spéculatif”’ (zbid., p. 233). 


32 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


view, was material information of an island or new 
islands hitherto unknown to Europeans. One of the 


facts, according to this view, tending to prove that 


material and not scientific reasoning actuated Colum- 
bus, was the route taken. It is contended that Co- 
lumbus followed the parallel of Gomera of the Cana- 
ries? westwards in order to find the island of the “un- 
known pilot.’? If the object of the voyage had been 
to reach India this route would not have been neces- 
sary. India, in the sense of being synonymous with 
Asia, could be reached by sailing westwards from 
any part of Europe.* Columbus did follow the paral- 


2 “‘Notons d’a bord que Colomb n’a pas fait voile de Palos vers l’ouest. 
Il s’est rendu aux Canaries, express6ment pour y prendre son point de 
départ, et c’est de Gomera, par le-28e paralléle, qu’il a fait route vers la 
région occidentale oti il comptait se rendre. Le choix de cette route ne 
s’imposait pas s'il s’agissait simplement d’aller aux Indes, et, s'il visait 
particuliérement les iles des Epices, il devait prendre sa direction plus au 
sud. On doit inférer de cela que Colomb avait un motif spécial pour 
choisir cette route, et cette supposition est confirmée par le fait que, tout 
le temps du voyage il s’attacha a suivre rigoureusement ce paralléle dont 
il ne consentit a s’écarter qu’avec répugnance, ainsi qu’en témoigne son 
Journal. On en conclut aussi qu’il croyait trouver sur cette route ce 
qu'il cherchait, et nous allons voir que ce n’était pas les Indes Orientales”’ 
(ibid., pp. 174-175; summarized on pp. 207-209). 

3 Who on his deathbed is said to have told Columbus in Madeira of 
his vessel having been driven by a storm to an island far westward in 
the Atlantic. The main source of the story is Bartolomé de las Casas: 
Historia de las Indias, 5 vols., Madrid, 1875-76; reference in Book I, 
Ch. 14 (Vol. 1, pp. 103-106). For a general discussion of the story, with 
quotation of this and other sources, see Chs. 40 and 41 (Vol. 1, pp. 325— 
344) of J. B. Thacher: Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work, His 
Remains, 3 vols., New York, 1903-04. 

4‘‘Hn méme temps, il [l’auteur de la lettre dite de Toscanelli] a sup- 
primé le passage indiquant qu’il fallait suivre le paralléle des Canaries, 
parceque, en fait, cette indication était inutile, car s'il s’agissait d’aller 
aux Indes, on pouvait prendre n’importe quel paralléle, et par conséquent 
elle présentait aussi le danger d’attirer l’attention sur le choix du dit 


as 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 33 


lel of the Canary Islands very closely. He only devi- 
ated from it twice during the whole voyage, once, be- 
tween the dates of September 20 and 25, to search for 
islands and again in the final days of the voyage when 
the land signs in the southwest forced him to change. 

This inquiry proposes to examine the matter of 
scientific preparation for the famous voyage of 1492. 
The scientific preparation has two aspects: first, a 
course of reasoning by which Columbus came to the 
conclusion that eastern Asia was not far distant west 
of Europe, and, second, Columbus’ study of the prob- 
lem of navigating the Atlantic. The first of these 
questions the writer has already investigated in the 
preceding study (pp. 27-30). This question will not 
be dealt with here. The second question alone will 
be the subject of the present study. Obviously, 
since it has been plausibly maintained that there 
was no scientific background to the voyage, it is 
difficult to prove directly that there was such a back- 
ground. However, there are internal evidences that 
may properly be pointed out and examined for what 
they are worth. 


THE ISLAND Outposts As Kery POINTS FOR THE 
STUDY OF THE ATLANTIC 


Columbus originated some plan of westward ex- 
ploration during his stay in Portugal. Whether this 
plan was the same as the one he later carried out 
parelléle, singulier, si le projet n’avait en vue que les Indes et n’etait fondé 


que sur des raisons théoriques’”’ (Vignaud, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 559, end of 
footnote 7). 


34 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


matters not. From Portugal he went to Spain. 
Hence the point of departure for his voyage brought 
him face to face with the same problem in navigating 
the Atlantic westwards as he would have had start- 
ing from Portugal. In the study of that Atlantic 
there were three key points whence the problem as 
Columbus faced it could be studied to better advan- 
tage than elsewhere. These points were the Azores, 
the Madeiras, and the Canaries. All three had been 
known to the Portuguese for many years. The reader 
is invited to study their position on the accompany- 
ing map (PI. I).* Their position with respect to the 


5 On Pl. I the route of Columbus across the Atlantic and return has 
been plotted according to the day’s runs and courses as given in the ab- 
stract by Las Casas of Columbus’ log book (M. F. de Navarrete: Colec- 
cion de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espafioles 
desde fines del siglo XV, Vol. 1, Madrid, 1825, pp. 1-166; Raccolta di 
documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana pel 
Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell’America, Part I, Vol. 1, Rome, 
1892, pp. I-119; English translation, with occasional errors in the figures, 
in C. R. Markham: The Journal of Christopher Columbus During His 
First Voyage, 1492-93, etc., Hakluyt Soc. Publs., 1st Series, Vol. 86, 
London, 1893, pp. 15-193). The portions between Palos and the Canaries 
and between the Azores and Palos have been omitted because the data 
for these in the log book are insufficient. The day’s runs on Sept. 26, 
Oct. 9, and Oct. 11, which in the log book are given only as totals, have 
been divided into the component parts estimated by G. V. Fox in the 
table of distances and courses of the voyage (pp. 406-407 of The Log of 
Columbus Across the Atlantic Ocean, 1492, Appendix D to his: An At- 
tempt to Solve the Problem of the First Landing Place of Columbus in 
the New World. Appendix No. 18 to U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Rept. 
for 1880, Washington, 1882, pp. 346-411). Fox’s allowance of 3 leagues 
for departure from Gomera, Sept. 6-8, has also been used. Although a 
certain leeway in the interpretation of the route is possible, the necessity 
of fitting the outward and homeward tracks between known endpoints 
makes it probable that any such reconstruction will in general be correct. 
At all events the present reconstruction is sufficiently correct to show the 
relation of the route to the physical conditions of the North Atlantic. 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 


Gs 
ts 


ocean currents and the prevailing winds should espe- 
cially be noted. These things were particularly im- 
portant in crossing the Atlantic with sails. A proper 
study of winds and currents might, under the cir- 
cumstances, therefore, be denominated scientific 
preparation for the great voyage, especially so if the 
conduct of the voyage indicates the proper utiliza- 


Of previous serious efforts to reconstruct the trans-Atlantic tracks of 
the first voyage on the basis of the entries of the log book abstract four 
are known to the writer: (1) the map showing the routes of the four 
voyages on the equatorial scale of 1:17,500,000, in Vol. 1 of Navarrete, 
work cited on p. 60, footnote 10 (copied without credit on Pl. 9 of Giu- 
seppe Banchero’s ‘‘La tavola di bronzo, il pallio di seta, ed il Codice 
Colomboamericano,’’ Genoa, 1857); (2) the map showing the westward 
route of the first voyage on the equatorial scale of 1:25,000,000 on page 4 
of [Oskar Peschel]: Das Schiffsbuch des Entdeckers von Amerika bei 
seiner Ueberfahrt iiber das atlantische Meer, Das Ausland, Vol. 40, 1867, 
pp. I-11; (3) the table of daily positions in latitude and longitude of the 
westward route of the first voyage adjusted to probable magnetic declina- 
tion in 1492, on pp. 416-417 of C. A. Schott: An Inquiry Into the Vari- 
ation of the Compass Off the Bahama Islands at the Time of the Landfall 
of Columbus in 1492, Appendix No. 19 to U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey 
Rept. for 1880, Washington, 1882, pp. 412-417; (4) the map by E. G. 
R[avenstein] showing the routes of the four voyages on the scale of 
1:80,000,000 forming the map facing p. 1 in C. R. Markham’s “Life 
of Christopher Columbus,’’ London, 1892 (copied in Filson Young’s 
“Christopher Columbus and the New World of His Discovery,” 2 vols., 
London, 1906, and, without credit, in E. G. Bourne’s ‘‘Spain in America, 
1450-1580,’ New York, 1904). On the maps by Giuseppi Pennesi accom- 
panying P. Amat di S. Filippo: Biografia dei viaggiatori italiani colla 
bibliografia delle loro opere (‘Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia 
della Geografia in Italia,’’ published on the occasion of the Second 
International Geographical Congress, Paris, 1875, by the Societa Geogra- 
fica Italiana, 2nd edition, Vol. 1, Rome, 1882) the route of Columbus’ 
first voyage (on Tavola I; equatorial scale, 1:90,000,000) is somewhat 
generalized. 

Although, for the purpose of tying in the route, the endpoints of the 
outward and homeward voyages are known this is not strictly the case 
with regard to the western endpoint of the outward voyage—the landfall 
of October 12, 1492. It is the belief of the writer that the identity of 
Columbus’ San Salvador is not possible of definitive solution today. On 


36 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


tion of such information. To base such a study on 
these three key points would be one indication of the 
mastery by Columbus of his problem. 


THE WIND BELTS OF THE NORTH ATLANTIC 


The passage of the Atlantic had been recognized 
from very early times as one dependent on the winds. 
Seneca said in Book I of his ‘‘Quaestiones natu- 


io 


rales’’: ‘‘A ship may sail in a few days with a fair wind 
from the coast of Spain to that of India.’’* This is 


Footnote 5, continued 


the accompanying map (PI. I) Cat Island is indicated as the landfall. 
The reason therefor is briefly this. It does not seem probable that the 
light seen by Columbus at 1o P.M., October 11 (Journal under October 
11), if on land, could have been on the same island that was sighted at 
2 A.M., October 12, two leagues, or 8 nautical miles away, in view of the 
fact that the vessels had proceeded 48 miles on their due west course in 
the intervening four hours. If the light was therefore on another island 
from the eventual landfall, Watling Island, as the one projecting farthest 
east from the chain, may be taken for the one on which the light was 
seen. Cat Island is the next to the west, and would thus best correspond 
to the landfall. 

It should be expressly stated, however, that it is not the intention to 
enter into the controversy as to the identity of the landfall. The reader 
who: wishes to pursue the question further will find references to the pub- 
lications of students of the problem on pp. 350-351 of G. V. Fox’s above- 
mentioned memoir; on pp. 52-56 of Vol. 2 of Justin Winsor: Narrative 
and Critical History of America, Boston, 1886; in Ch. 5 (pp. 89-107) of 
C. R. Markham’s above-mentioned ‘“‘Life of Christopher Columbus’’; on 
pp. 9-10 of Rudolf Cronau’s ‘‘The Discovery of America and the Landfall 
of Columbus; The Last Resting Place of Columbus: Two Monographs 
Based on Personal Investigations,” privately printed, New York, 1921. 

6 So quoted in Ferdinand Columbus: The History of the Life and 
Actions of Adm. Christopher Columbus, and of His Discovery of the 
West Indies, Call’d the New World, Now in Possession of His Catholick 
Majesty, Written by His Own Son, in Awnsham Churchill and John 
Churchill’s ‘‘A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Some Now First 
Printed from Original Manuscripts, Others Now First Published in 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 37 


cited by Ferdinand Columbus as one of the opinions 
of learned men which influenced his father in the 
formulation of his plan and shows that he had given 
specific thought to this aspect of the problem. With- 
out such favorable winds it is questionable whether 
any crew could have been found sufficiently coura- 
geous to have endured the voyage, given the condi- 
tions confronting the world in 1492. Now, a study 
of the accompanying map will show that, roughly, 
north of the Azores was a belt of prevailing west 
winds and currents making extremely unlikely the 
conditions laid down by Seneca. Between the Azores 
and the Canaries was a belt with a high percentage 
of calms. The winds were variable, without a pre- 
vailing east wind. But the Canary Islands mark 
in a general way the northern limit of the north- 
east trade winds. There is no obstruction to a west- 
ward voyage by the ocean currents. These winds 


English’’ (8 vols., London, 1707-1748), Vol. 2, pp. 501-628; reference on 
p. 510. (The first published version is in Italian, translated from the lost 
Spanish original, and was printed in Venice in 1571. It is entitled: 
“Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo nelle quali s’ha particolare e vera 
relatione della vita e de’ fatti dell’ ammiraglio D. Christoforo Colombo, 
suo padre, e dello scoprimento ch’egli fece dell’ Indie occidentali, detto 
Mondo Nuovo, hora possedute dal S. Re Catolico, nuovamente di lingua 
spagnuola tradotte nell’ italiana dal sig. Alfonso Ulloa.’’) The standard 
current edition of the Italian version is that edited by Giulio Antimaco 
and published in London in 1867. 

The Latin original of Seneca reads: “Quantum enim est quod ab 
ultimis litoribus Hispaniae usque ad Indos iacet? Paucissimorum dierum 
spatium, si navem suus ferat ventus, implebit.’’ While Seneca’s main 
point was that the distance was short, Columbus probably regarded 
that as incidental, as he had his own views as to the distance, and seized 
rather upon the reference to the fair wind, as an important element in 
his plans. 


38 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


vary seasonally. The conditions herein mentioned 
prevail farthest south in December and farthest north 
in July. In mid-Atlantic the northern limit of the 
trades varies between the 25th and 28th parallels. 
Near the European shore they vary from Lisbon in 
latitude 38° to Mogador on the Moroccan coast 
Te? Ne 


EVIDENCES OF LAND IN THE WEST 


Columbus gathered all the information he could 
concerning the evidences of land to the westward. 
Both Las Casas and Ferdinand Columbus devote 
considerable space to cataloguing this information.’ 
But neither says anything about the problem of ocean 
navigation. Whatever we may learn of this phase 
of the problem we can only infer by calling attention 
to the natural phenomena in comparison with Co- 
lumbus’ conduct of his voyage. However, there are 
important consequences that may legitimately be 
inferred from the material catalogued by Las Casas 
and Ferdinand Columbus. According to them the 
people of the Azores had reported that once when the 
wind had blown many days from the west it had cast 
upon their shores pines of a kind which did not grow 
on their islands. At another time the sea brought 
the bodies of two men of strange race to the island of 
Flores, one of the Azores. Still another time covered 
boats, or almadias, had been cast upon the shore. 


7 Ferdinand Columbus, op. cit., Ch. 9 (English edition, pp. 513-515); 
Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 13 (Vol. 1, pp. 97=102)- 


ROUDE ON FIRST VOYAGE 39 


A certain captain, Martin Vicente, told Columbus 
that, being 450 leagues west of Cape St. Vincent, he 
had picked up from the water a piece of wood curi- 
ously carved. He reported the winds had been west 
for many days. Pero Correa had reported to Colum- 
bus that in the island of Porto Santo of the Madeira 
group he had seen another piece of wood brought by 
the same winds. Other reports were about reeds of 
such a size that one joint would hold upwards of four 
quarts of wine. No such reeds grew in western Europe 
or Africa. Most of these things are mentioned in 
connection with the west winds. The almadias and 
the dead bodies, though, were brought by the sea. 
_ We are probably warranted in interpreting this as 
having reference to the currents from the west which 
pass the Azores. Of the stories listed above four 
are connected directly with the Azores and one with 
the island of Porto Santo, while the story of the 
reeds is not located. From these facts, then, it 
seems that it may legitimately be inferred that Colum- 
bus had his attention definitely called to the existence 
both of the prevailing west winds and of the east- 
erly drift of the ocean currents in the latitude of the 
Azores. 

As regards knowledge of the sea farther south, we 
have to infer from other matters. Columbus discred- 
ited the story of Antonio Leme® that he had seen 
islands west of Madeira because by his own story he 
had not sailed 100 leagues westward. At least if 


8 Ferdinand Columbus, English edition, op. cit., p. 513; Las Casas, 
op. cit., Book 1, Ch. 13 (Vol. 1, pp. 98-99). 


40 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


anything had been seen it was only rocks or mayhap 
floating islands, such as the ancients had described. 
From this it might be argued that Columbus was 
acquainted with the Atlantic for about 300 miles 
at least west of the Madeiras. According to the 
deposition of Alonzo Velez Allid,® one Pero Vasquez 
de la Frontera had talked with both Columbus and 
Pinzén concerning the western sea. He told them 
that “when they arrived among the grasses (Mzer- 
bas), it would be necessary to follow a straight road 
because it was impossible not to find land.’”’ This 
Pero Vasquez de la Frontera, according to the testi- 
mony, was a sailor who had been on a westward voy- 
age under the auspices of an Infant of Portugal to 
find India. He said that in order to reach India it 
was necessary to brave the obstacle of the grasses. 
Because this had not been done the Infant of Portu- 
gal had failed to reach the Indies.!° These grasses, 
or iierbas, in the ocean seem to be nothing more or 
less than what is called the Sargasso Sea. In that 
case direct knowledge of the Atlantic was available 
for over a thousand miles west of the Madeiras and 
the Canaries, for the bulk of the Sargasso Sea is not 
west of the Azores. It is in the belt of calms and no 
ocean currents, its densest area lying between the 

9 Deposition of Alonzo Velez Allid, Nov. 1, 1532: ‘““Que cuando llegasen 
a las dichas hierbas . . . salvo que siquiesen la via derecha porque 
era imposible el no dar en la tierra’ (Cesareo Fernandez Duro: Colén y 


Pinzon: Informe relativo 4 los pormenores de descubrimiento del Nuevo 
Mundo presentado 4 la Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid, 1883, 


PD. 234-235). 
10 Fernandez Duro, op. cit., pp. 234-235. 


a 


Pew ON FIRST VOYAGE 41 


20th and 35th parallels of north latitude and between 
the 38th and 74th meridians west of Greenwich." 
The position varies slightly with the winds and the 
currents. 

Such is the evidence collected by Columbus before 
_his voyage. There were rumors about the Island 
of the Seven Cities! and other mythical lands, but 
these need not detain us. Columbus probably had 
more evidence than was catalogued by his son and 
by Las Casas. But it has not come down to us. It 
should be particularly noted once more that neither 
Las Casas nor Ferdinand Columbus devote any space 
to discussing the problem of navigating the Atlantic 
from the seaman’s standpoint. Therefore, whatever 
we learn on this point will be incidental to the other 
information they gave. It is by subjecting this in- 
formation to analysis that we come into possession 
of the knowledge Columbus had. 


THE PROBLEM OF NAVIGATING THE ATLANTIC IN THE 
LIGHT OF CONTEMPORARY KNOWLEDGE 


Now, if we imagine a present-day scientist study- 
ing the problem of navigating the Atlantic under the 
conditions that faced Columbus in 1492, the question 
arises, Just what information could he gather that 
would assist him in the solution of his problem? We 

11 See the map of the Sargasso Sea in W. H. Babcock: Legendary Islands 
of the Atlantic: A Study in Medieval Geography, Amer. Geogr. Soc. Re- 
search Series No. 8, New York, 1922, p. 28, and the authorities there cited 


‘ on p. 30, footnote. See also Pl. I of the present work for its total area. 
_ 12Qn this topic, see Babcock, op. cit., Ch. 5. 


42 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


must imagine such a person confined entirely to the 
eastern side of the Atlantic for all of his information. 
He could make his calculation of the size of the earth. 
He could inform himself as to the extent of land be- 
tween the known West and the known East. From 
these data he could make a calculation as to the prob- 
able distance across the Atlantic. We know that 
Columbus did this. Such a scientist would also take 
into account his means of travel. If confined to 
sails, then he would inquire into the matter of helps 
and hindrances to such travel, in other words he 
would study the winds and ocean currents. He 
would learn that there was a belt of prevailing wes- 
terly winds north of the Azores. Between the Azores 
and the Canaries there was a belt of calms and vari- 
able winds, including a goodly percentage of head 
winds unsuited to rapid progress. South from the 
Canaries there was a belt of prevailing northeast and 
east winds, with a low percentage of calms and very 
few head winds. As tor the ocean currents, there 
was an easterly drift of the ocean north of the 
Azores. This current turned south along the coast 
of Portugal and North Africa and again moved 
westward between the Canaries and the Cape Verde 
Islands. Unless the inquiry were extended to the far 
north and south, this would include substantially all 
that our assumed present-day scientist could learn 
short of crossing the ocean. If we apply this in- 
quiry to the Columbus problem we shall see that 
Columbus apparently was in possession of all of these 





ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 43 


facts and understood them so thoroughly that he 
did not make a single false move in the entire voyage. 

We know from the catalogue of the evidences of land 
in the west that Columbus knew of the prevailing 
west winds and the easterly drift of the Atlantic in 
the region of the Azores and north thereof. But we 
have not even a mention of the belt of calms and 
variable winds between the Azores and the Canaries, 
nor have we any mention of the prevailing northeast 
and east winds from the Canaries south. 


COLUMBUS’ PROFICIENCY IN NAVIGATION 


We know from direct statements by Columbus that 
_ he gave very careful thought to the study of the winds 
and ocean currents. In a letter of 1501 he said:® 
‘“‘T went to sea very young, and have continued it to 
this day; and this art inclines those that follow it to 
be desirous to discover the secrets of this world; it 
is now forty years that I have been sailing to all those 
parts at present frequented; and I have dealt and 
conversed with wise people, as well clergy as laity, 
Latins, Greeks, Indians, and Moors, and many others 
of other sects; and our Lord has been favorable to 
this my inclination, and I have received of him the 
spirit of understanding. He has made me very skill- 
ful in navigation, etc.’’ In his letter known as the 


Arte de Navegar letter" he recalls that he had advised 
13 Ferdinand Columbus, English edition, pp. 506-507; Las Casas, 
Gemini ook 1, Ch.2 (Vol. 1, p. 47). 
14So0 calied where first published, in: Cartas de Indias; publicalas 
por primera vez el Ministerio de Fomento, Madrid, 1877, letter IJ. Also 
in Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, pp. 161-163, and, in facsimile, with trans- 
lation, in Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 3, pp. 226-241. 


44 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


the King and Queen correctly in 1497 in regard to 
the probable day of arrival of the long-delayed Flan- 
ders fleet. This was specifically on account of his 


knowledge of the winds in the English Channel and — 


in the Bay of Biscay. In his journal of his first voy- 
age Columbus proposes “‘to construct a new chart for 
navigating on which I shall delineate all the sea and 
lands of the Ocean in their proper positions under 
their bearings.” But it is needless to argue this 
point. Columbus was one of the foremost sailors of 
the world in an age of sails. 

Therefore, it is sufficient to notice these things to 
make it apparent that every sea captain who sailed 
the Atlantic between the Canaries, the Azores, and 
the Spanish peninsula knew all the winds of that 
section of the Atlantic. As for Columbus’ ability as 
a navigator, Las Casas says: ‘““Thus we believe that 
Christopher Columbus in the art of navigation ex- 
ceeded without any doubt all others who lived in his 
aye 


ANALYSIS OF THE WESTWARD VOYAGE 


To make it still more apparent that Columbus 
knew the facts set forth above in regard to the At- 
lantic south of the Azores, the voyage outwards will 


1 Markham, Journal, p. 18. In the original, now in the Biblioteca 
Nacional in Madrid (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 3), the passage reads: 
‘“‘tengo propdsito de hazer carta nueva de navegar, en la qual situaré toda 
la mar & tierras del mar Occéano en sus proprios lugares, debaxo su viento.’’ 

16 Las Casas, op. cit., Book 1, Ch. 3 (Voi. I, p. 49): “‘Ansi creemos 
que Cristébal Col6n en el arte de navegar excedi6 sin alguna duda 4 todos 
cuantos en su tiempo en el mundo habia.”’ 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 45 


now be subjected to study for any internal evidences 
it may furnish. 

The first fact that confronts one is that the voyage 
was made westward from the Canaries and not from 
Spain. It is probably true that even in 1492 the 
physical difficulties of the passage of the Atlantic 
could have been overcome anywhere between Nor- 
way and Guinea were it not for the psychological 
difficulties. In the first crossing the psychology of 
the common sailor was a matter of extreme impor- 
tance. In dealing with this element it was indispen- 
sable that the passage should be accomplished in the 
shortest possible time. Columbus understood this 
perfectly. He had promised his crews that they 
would find land when they had gone about 750 leagues 
west of the island of Ferro.!7 Then from the gth of 
September, the third day out of Gomera, Columbus 
systematically falsified the day’s run as told to the 
crew, because, as he tells us in the Journal,!8 “‘if the 
voyage was of long duration, the people would not be 
so terrified and disheartened.’’ He noted the same 
reason!® again on September 25, when 21 leagues were 
sailed, ‘‘but the people were told that 13 was the dis- 

17 Las Casas, op. cit., Book 1, Ch. 39 (Vol. 1, p. 287): ‘‘por cualquiera 
ocasi6n 6 conjetura que le hobiese 4 su opinién venido, que, habiendo na- 
vegado de la isla del Hierro por este mar Océano 750 leguas, pocas mas 6 
ménos, habia de hallar tierra.’’ See also Vignaud, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 282. 
Reckoning at 1480 meters each (see above, p. 18, footnote 23) the four 
Italian nautical miles that constitute a league, this would work out to 
about 63° longitude west of Greenwich on the 28th parallel, or about 300 
English statute miles south-southeast of Bermuda. 


18 Markham, Journal, p. 22, under date of Sunday, 9th of September. 
19 [bid., p. 29, under 25th of September. 


46 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


tance made good: for it was always feigned to them 
that the distances were less, so that the voyage might 
not appear so long.’”’ Vignaud objects?® to this on 
two grounds: first, it was not the Admiral’s but the 
pilot’s business to keep the log, and there were several 
pilots in the fleet; second, to deceive the crew suffi- 
ciently to reach Asia he would have to falsify the log 
by over 1000 leagues. This latter objection has been 
considered in the preceding study (p. 27) and will 
not detain us here. As for the first objection, the 
pilots themselves did not agree and, according to the 
Journal at least, were distinctly inferior in ability to 
Columbus, as witness the Journal under dates of 
September 17, February 10, and February 15.7! Vig- 
naud objects that this shows interpolations and pur- 
poseful falsifications because Columbus could not 
know the calculations of the pilots of the Nzfia and 
Pinta. He overlooks the fact that conversation was 
had from ship to ship on several occasions. Consid- 
ering these facts it is under the aspect of reaching the 
farthest west possible in the shortest space of time 
possible that one should view both the choice of the 
parallel of the Canaries as the one on which the voy- 
age was made and the persistence with which Colum- 
bus stuck to that parallel. 

With regard to the whole enterprise Vignaud has 
said :22 “‘When he left Palos with his hardy compan- 
ions he was not imbued with any chimerical theory 

20 Vignaud, op. cil., pp. 201-264. 


21 Markham, Journal, pp. 24, 173, and 178-179. 
2 Vignaud, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 492-493. 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 47 


about the proximity of the Indies borrowed or stolen 
from a savant whose knowledge one has misunder- 
stood in attributing it to him. If it had been so, 
the great event which has revealed the existence of 
another world would have been due to nothing but a 
happy chance.’’ Then choice of the parallel of the 
Canaries for the voyage was either a happy chance 
or due to the story of the “unknown pilot.’ But if 
the success of the voyage is due to the unknown pilot 
then the happy chance is only once removed. How 
shall we explain the happy chance of the pilot’s return, 
something the best navigators of Spain failed to ac- 
complish for forty-five years on the Pacific; and how 
shall we explain the happy chance that enabled Co- 
lumbus without error to pick the proper return route 
_ across the Atlantic on his first voyage? 

But if both of Vignaud’s contentions are rejected 
and in their stead we credit Columbus with a scien- 
tific study of his problem, we are not driven from one 
explanation to another like the Hindu philosopher 
in explaining what held the world in place. Coming 
back to Columbus’ westward route, inspection of the 
accompanying map (PI. I) will show that no other 
route farther north could have been chosen which 
would comport with either the condition of the an- 
cients or with the necessity of making the greatest 
distance in the shortest possible time. The choice 
of the parallel of the Canaries comports perfectly 
with the knowledge we have shown every navigator 
concerned had of the Atlantic immediately west of 


48 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Spain and North Africa. It comports with the 
knowledge we have shown was had of the Atlantic 
for over a thousand miles west of the Canaries. 
Moreover, it is in perfect consonance with the return 
voyage to credit Columbus with an understanding 
of the problems of navigating the Atlantic. In fact, 
the return voyage constitutes an unanswerable argu- 
ment against the contention that the discovery was 
all a happy chance or was based on the story of an 
unknown pilot. 

The choice of the Canary parallel resulted in such 
success that after a time it brought its own troubles. 
The sailors began to complain that they never could 
get back to Spain because of the prevalence of both 
winds and currents from the east. On September 
22 Columbus noted :* “This contrary wind was very 
necessary to me, because my people were much ex- 
cited at the thought that in these seas no wind ever 
blew in the direction of Spain.’ And the next day 
the Admiral remarked :* ‘‘The high sea was very nec- 
essary to me, such as had not appeared but in the 
time of the Jews when they went out of Egypt and 
murmured against Moses, who delivered them out 
of captivity.”’ In the lawsuit of Diego Columbus 
against the Crown, Francisco Morales, the eighth 
witness, answered the eighth question saying :** ‘The 


23 Markham, Journal, p. 27. 

24 Tbid., p. 28. 

25 Deposition of Francisco Morales in Porto Rico, Sept. 14, 1514: “‘se 
juntaron los maestres de tres navios que trayan el dicho primer viage, é 
que se pusyeron en requerir al dicho Almirante que se bolviese 4 Castilla, 
porque segund los tienpos reynavan levantes en el golfo que no creyan 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE 49 


captains of the three boats who were on the first voy- 
age concerted among themselves and demanded of the 
Admiral that he should return to Castile, because, 
considering the times the east winds prevailed on the 
sea, they did not believe if they went any farther they 
would be able to return to Spain, and the said Ad- 
miral answered them that they should not concern 
themselves in such matters, that God who gave them 
these times would give to them another to return.” 
Testimony on the same point was also given by Juan 
Roldan of Moguer in 1535.78 

By the choice of the latitude of the Canaries for 
his route westward Columbus avoided the belt of 
calms and variable winds between the Azores and the 
Canaries. He chose a route that was well within the 
northern limit of the northeast trade winds at that 
season, as shown on the adjoining map (Pl. I). He 
also very nearly traveled the road marked on the 
same map for the present customary sailing route 
by way of the trades for the month of August. In 
other words, over four hundred years of experience 
in sailing the Atlantic has not suggested any material 
change in the route chosen by Columbus on his first 


sy mas adelante yva de poder bolver en Espafia, y quel dicho Almirante 
le respondi6 que no curasen de aquello, que Dios que les daba aquel tienpo 
jes daria otra para bolver’’ (Cesareo Fernandez Duro: De los pleitos de 
Col6én, 2 vols., Madrid, 1892-94, in ‘‘Coleccién de documentos inéditos 
relativos al descubrimiento, conquista y organizaci6én de las antiguas 
posesiones espafiolas de ultra-mar,’’ 2nd Series, Vols. 7 and 8, Real 
Academia de Historia, Madrid, reference in Vol. 7, p. 421.) 

28 Deposition of Juan Roldan of Moguer at Seville, Dec. 22, 1535 
(Fernandez Duro, Col6n y Pinzon, p. 260). 


50 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


voyage. In thirty-three days he reached land among 
the Bahama group of islands and so crowned the first 
part of his work with complete success. 


THE RETURN VOYAGE 


After exploring among the West Indies from Octo- 
ber 12, 1492, to January 16, 1493, Columbus began 
his homeward voyage. So much has been said about 
his discovery of America that it has been lost to sight 
and thought that he also discovered both of the 
great sailing routes in the North Atlantic. It is in 
the study of this return voyage in connection with 
the outward voyage that the science of Columbus 
stands out in striking fashion. He made no attempt 
to return to Spain by the way he came. For the 
period from January 16 to February 4 he continued 
toward the northern latitudes (see Pl. I). In that 
time he made only about a third of the distance home- 
ward across the Atlantic. But he reached a point 
directly west of the Azores. There he reached the 
latitude of the prevailing westerly winds. It was in 
this latitude that he really recrossed the Atlantic. 
In general the westerly winds are more reliable five 
degrees farther north. But Columbus reached a re- 
gion where he did not have to contend with easterly 
winds. Whence came this happy inspiration? Was 
it another happy chance? Or was it an application 
of reason to the knowledge we have shown he had 
that in the latitude of the Azores the winds were pre- 
vailing westerlies? 





: | . , ies NOI, PLI 
Num: Geographical Conceptions of Columbus American Geogr. Soc. Research Series 


MAP SHOWING ge ibaa 

THE ROUTE OF COLUMBUS 

ON HIS FIRST VOYAGE ACROSS aS 
THE ATLANTIC AND RETURN 
TO ILLUSTRATE HIS UTILIZATION 
OF THE WINDS AND CURRENTS er! og? | 


Mean meridional scale 


1:27,000,000 


; Scale for degrees of latitude 
Statute miles 300 200 100 C) 25 50 75 leagues 
50° 


5 

‘oO 4se 
ads Bo? 
305 Zao 
5 a 


‘5300 200 100 0 25 50 


days ru Route of Columbus based on the abstract 
iS of his log by Las Casas (days run in 
leagues; / leaque=4 Italian nautical 






























































































































































































































ma spure miles of approx. 4855 feet each) 
The daily positions on the westward veyage 
refer to midnight of the civil day (€.9.5¢r, = position 
on Oct. |, 1.59 PM) according to the interpretation 
of &6.V. Fox (U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey Rept. for \ / 
1880, pp. 406-407): on the eastward voyage ef . 
refer to sunset. The days runs on Sept.26, Oct. S~_b/ 
9, and Oct. I!, which in the log are given only as “2D | 
totals, are divided into their component parts 
according to the same author. 
The voyage trom Palos © | 
to the Canaries and from the : 
Azores to Palos is not plotted Fc JX fo-muda 
because the Jog is not complete A. © 
in those portions. e ry: ay f 
So Ag oO “ A 9p 7. e 3h? 
ke wa a“ / / 1424 Pos he 
S\ / PO i 
ae. a a 
Z] 3. \ foo: > «ly? “ iat oa oir rag 
het ee Se foe ee NOR HE RN Sg mere Xue IMIT 3 1 erra SSEPLT J 
AG | Ry Bi 
_ pes 3 : ~ Prevailing winds and calms in a given 5-degree 
Ass ‘eee 22 e — — oN ie 402927728 Me s or in Jan. and Sept. (from monthly 
aint erase NS +92 a opi ey ae, ee: jose de is ae aS ee eget ee age 4 “4OE nk y Jan “lot Chart of North Atlantic Ocean, 
ay y nidfall > arti NS -—-A-—— ++ a Sept publ. by US. Hydrographic Office). 
a Bot: Kp The arrows fly with the wind. Their 
Pry S a length is proportional to the frequency 
” ed) of the wind in the directions shown 
: y ie (8 in the wind roses north of lat. 30°: 
,°* fs /6 south of lat. 30°). The number of 
2 feathers on each arrow shows the 
force of the wind according to the 























numbers in the Beaufort scale. The 
igure in the center of the circle 
gives the percentage of calms. 


BES ___—_— Prevailing currents during the northern 
— — > bide wii winter (after 6. Schott Geogr 
ae des Atlantischen Ozeans, 19/2, Pl. 16) 


x &e_ Curve of 5% probability of meeting with Floating 
He Gulf weed, representing ractically the outer 
Me 4 hmit of the Sargasso Sea (after O. Kriimmel 

ae Petermanns Mitt. Vol 37, 1891, PI 10) 


BP sec Sesto Northern limit of northeast trade winds inJan. 
and Sept. as indicated 


t 7 > ———~ Present usual track of sailing vessels from the 
a English Channel to West Indies and from 
Trinidad to the Azores 


\ 2 
yy 
A OPA at 


—_ Haiti JAN 69 






























































Copyright, 924, by the American Geographical Society of New York 






= 


is 4 aang J 


H ** * Papi 
; O9GD00TS*1 «4 
user te esrhsh 2 aed 




















ois 
: Cy 
* 
“ r . seer > é 
F % © ¥ 
' ae 
as 
~ 
\ - & 
.* i 7 . 
" ‘ e “ RRA a CAS. Cay: “_ 4 
ble Rd) | 





@ eh wae conte | 
& whee ne ; 


ROUTE-ON FIRST VOYAGE 1 


st 


CONTRAST WITH DISCOVERY OF ROUTES ACROSS THE 
PACIFIC 


To complete this investigation it remains to con- 
trast the passage of the Atlantic with the discovery 
of the routes across the Pacific. The first crossing 
of the Pacific from east to west was by Magellan in 
1520-1521. Theattempted return trip of the Trinidad, 
one of Magellan’s vessels, from the Spice Islands to 
America in 1522 under Espinosa, did not succeed.?’ 
After him similarly Saavedra failed in 1528, again 
in 1529, Gaetan in 1543, and Ortiz de Retez in 1545.28 
The eastward passage was not accomplished until 
Urdaneta discovered the way in 1565.29 There in- 
tervened between the first crossing westwards and 
the first eastward passage forty-five years of failure, 
involving also the loss of the Spice Islands to Spain. 

Contrast this with the work of Columbus. On 
his first voyage he discovered that route which is still 
followed by all sailing vessels as the best possible 
from any part of Europe to North America. He also 
discovered the route homeward by way of the Azores 
that later experience to the present time likewise has 
accepted as the best. The only variation in this last 
is the use of the Strait of Florida and the Gulf Stream 
at the beginning of the route, a plan Columbus, of 


27 James Burney: A Chronological History of the Discoveries in the 
South Sea, or Pacific Ocean, 4 vols., London, 1803-16; reference in Vol. 1, 
po TES=118. 

28 Ibid.: Saavedra, pp. 151-158; Gaetan, pp. 238-239; Ortiz de Retez, 
pp. 241-242. 

29 Ibid., pp. 2€9—270. 


32 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


course, could not follow since he had started his re- 
turn voyage from Samana Bay in the island of Haiti, 
ten degrees to the east of Florida. 

There were really three discoveries made by Co- 
lumbus instead of one. His discovery of the two 
ocean routes was so overshadowed by the discovery 
of land that it has passed unnoticed. However, in 
the very nature of the case the really great ocean dis- 
coveries could not be appreciated by any one until 
later generations had become acquainted with the 
whole Atlantic Ocean. By that time people forgot 
to give credit where it was due. 


CONCLUSION 


This exposition of facts connected with Columbus’ 
first voyage does not necessarily prove him to have 
been a true scientist. The chain of circumstances 
resulting so happily may have been due entirely to 
chance. But it is truly extraordinary when a chain 
of chances fits together so perfectly. For the out- 
ward voyage there was the belt of calms and head 
winds to be avoided. There was the indispensable 
need of making a great distance westwards in a short 
space of time. There was the belt of favorable winds 
to help. But their use involved a second start from - 
a point not obviously on the route to the place sought. 
There were currents and winds both adverse for the 
return in the region from whence Columbus started 
on his return voyage. There was the same belt of 
calms and variable winds to be avoided on the return, 


ROUTE ON FIRST VOYAGE oo 


and, finally, by a northern detour, there was a belt of 
favorable winds and currents by which to make the 
return. Without an error, every hindrance was 
avoided and every assisting factor was utilized. This 
may be chance. But to the writer it seems that Las 
Casas was right, ‘‘Christopher Columbus in the art of 
navigation exceeded without any doubt all others who 
lived in his day.” 


DID COLUMBUS BELIEVE THAT HE 
REACHED ASIA ON HIS FOURTH 
VOYAGE? 


The question to be considered here is whether 
Columbus did or did not think that he had reached 


the eastern coast of Asia on his fourth voyage. 
That he believed he had reached Asia has been main- 
tained by John Fiske, A. E. Nordenskidld, and 


Henry Vignaud.!' Justin Winsor, Henry Harrisse, 


1 John Fiske: The Discovery of America, With Some Account of 
Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest, 2 vols., Boston, 1892; 
reference in Vol. I, p. 510. 

A. E. Nordenskiéld: Periplus: An Essay on the Early History of 
Charts and Sailing-Directions, transl. by F. A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, 
p. 100. 

Henry Vignaud: Toscanelli and Columbus, London, 1902, pp. 215-216. 
Vignaud is not so positive in his “‘Histoire critique de la grande entre- 
prise de Christophe Colomb,”’ 2 vols., Paris, 1911 (see Vol. 1, p. 3, and 
Vol. 2, pp. 364, 455, 484, and 494), as in his earlier work. While he still 
credits Columbus with the belief that he had reached the confines of 
Asia, he quotes a long list of contemporary writers (Vol. 2, pp. 287-317) 
and cartographers (pp. 317-321) to show that Columbus stood almost 
alone in this opinion. 

Other writers who take this view are: 

Washington Irving: The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 
3 vols., New York, 1828, Book 7, Ch. 4. 

W. H. Prescott: History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the 
Catholic, 3 vols., Boston, 1838, Part II, Ch. 9. See also his “‘History of 
the Conquest of Mexico,’’ 3 vols., New York, 1843, Book 2, Ch. I. 

Sir Arthur Helps: The Spanish Conquest in America, 4 vols., London, 
1856-61 (Vol. I, p. 95); new edit., edited by M. Oppenheim, 4 vols., 
London, 1900-04 (Vol. I, p. 57). 

J. G. Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North 
America, Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen in 990 
to the Charter of Gilbert in 1578, constituting Vol. 1 of the ‘‘Docu- 


BELIEF IN ASIA 55 


and John Boyd Thacher are of the opposite opinion.’ 
In general, it may be said that, before 1892, it was 
not doubted that Columbus died in the conviction 


mentary History of the State of Maine’’ (Collections of the Maine 
Historical Society, 2nd Series), Portland, 1869, pp. 149 and 238-239. See 
aiso his “‘Asia and America,’”’ Proc. Amer. Antiquarian Soc., Worcester, 
Mass., Vol. 21 (N. S.), 1911, pp. 284-338; reference on p. 290. 

Henry Stevens: Historical and Geographical Notes on the Earliest 
Discoveries in America, 1453-1530, New Haven, 1869, p. 33. 

H. H. Bancroft: Central America (History of the Pacific States of 
North America, Vols. 1-3), 3 vols., San Francisco, 1882-87; reference in 
Wol.-Ti p. 233. 

Francesco Tarducci: The Life of Christopher Columbus, transl. by 
H. F. Brownson, 2 vols. in one, Detroit, 1891; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 
219-220. 

C. K. Adams: Christopher Columbus, His Life and His Work, London, 
1892, p. 255. 

Edward Channing: A History of the United States (5 vols. published, 
1905-21), Vol. 1, p. 18. 

J. E. Olson and E. G. Bourne, edits.: The Northmen, Columbus and 
Cabot, 985-1503 (Original Narratives of Early American History), New 
York, 1906; reference in section “‘Original Narratives of the Voyages of 
Columbus,”’ edited by E. G. Bourne, p. 397. 

H. P. Biggar: The New Columbus, Ann. Rept. Amer. Hist. Assoc. for 
the Year 1912, Washington, 1914, pp. 95—104; reference on p. 104. 

C. R. Beazley: The Columbian Tradition on the Discovery of America, 
[by] Henry Vignaud (a review), Geogr. Journ., Vol. 56, 1920, pp. 416-418. 


2 Justin Winsor: Christopher Columbus, and How He Received and 
Imparted the Spirit of Discovery, Boston, 1891, pp. 296 and 437-476. 
See also his ‘‘Cartier to Frontenac,’’ Boston, 1894, pp. I-4. 

Henry Harrisse: The Discovery of North America: A Critical, Docu- 
mentary, and Historic Investigation, London and Paris, 1892, p. 104. 

J. B. Thacher: Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work, His Re- 
mains, As Revealed by Original Printed and Manuscript Records, 3 vols., 
New York, 1903-04; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 568 and 617. 

Other writers who think Columbus believed that he had discovered a 
new world are: 

A. J. Weise: The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525, New York, 
1884, p. 154. 

C. R. Markham: Life of Christopher Columbus, London, 1892, 
p. 283. 


56 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


that he had reached Asia. Since then, however, 
many scholars have adopted the view that it had 
dawned upon Columbus, before his death, that he 
had discovered a new world distinct from the India 
and Cathay which had been the original object of 
his search. 

The present discussion upholds the earlier con- 
clusion and examines in detail the arguments ad- 
vanced against it by Harrisse and Thacher, taken 
as representative of the later view, 


THE BASIS FOR A NEW INVESTIGATION 


Columbian scholars have devoted themselves 
almost exclusively to a study of the documentary 
materials on Columbus. Little attention has been 
given to the cartographical evidence, aside from the 
reconstructions of the so-called Toscanelli chart. 
But in the writings of Columbus there are so many 
references to his geographical beliefs that a study 
based on cartography may assist in determining 
whether Columbus did or did not believe that he had 
reached eastern Asia while on the coast of Veragua 
(Panama). 


Footnote 2, continued 


Filson Young: Christopher Columbus and the New World of His 
Discovery, 2 vols., Philadelphia, 1906; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 164 and 
169. 

E. L. Stevenson: Marine World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio Januensis, 
1502 (circa): A Critical Study, With Facsimile (text, 1908; facsimile in 
portfolio, 1907), Amer. Geogr. Soc. and Hispanic Soc. of America, New 
York; reference in text, pp. 29-30. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 57 


As we have seen in the first study (p. 6), Colum- 
bus had read (we still have preserved in the Bib- 
lioteca Colombina at Seville his annotated copies) 
the ‘Imago mundi”’ of Pierre d’Ailly, the ‘‘ Historia 
rerum ubique gestarum”’ of Aeneas Sylvius, and the 
first Latin edition of Marco Polo’s travels, entitled 
“‘De consuetudinibus et condicionibus orientalium 
regionum.’’? He had also read the “Travels of Sir 
John Mandeville’’* and the ‘“‘“Geography”’ of Ptolemy.* 
Moreover, we have to assist us in a study of Colum- 


3 Justin Winsor, edit.: Narrative and Critical History of America, 
8 vols., Boston, 1884-89; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 26-33. 

Vignaud, Histoire critique, Vol. 1, pp. 95-104. 

Postille. In: Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. Com- 
missione Colombiana pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell’America, 
6 parts in 14 vols., Rome, 1892-96; reference in Part I, Vol. 2, pp. 
291-470. _ 

Biblioteca Colombina: Catalogo de sus libros impresos, Seville, 1888— 
1916, Vol. I, pp. 49-69; Vol. 2, pp. vii-xliv; Vol. 5, p. 51. 

4 First published in French between 1357 and 1371. See J. O. Halli- 
well, edit.: The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville, Kt. . 
Reprinted from the Edition of A. D. 1725, London, 1839. 

' 5. The ‘‘Geography”’ (‘‘Geographiké hyphégesis’’) of the Greek geog- 
rapher Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria (ca. 150 A.D.), which exerted 
so profound an influence on the geographical thought of the later Middle 
Ages, was probably first printed, in Latin, in Vicenza in 1475. The 
first printed edition to be accompanied by maps was that published in 
Rome in 1478. Columbus possessed a copy of this edition (Raccolta, 
Part I, Vol. 2, p. 523). Although the work as originally written by 
Ptolemy was probably accompanied by maps, the maps in the printed 
edition are presumably independent compilations by medieval com- 
mentators from the specific data as to geographical positions given in 
the text. The first of these maps, reproduced in Fig. 3, is the most im- 
portant as it shows Ptolemy’s conception of the then known world.— 
The standard critical editions of the text are those by C. F. A. Nobbe, 
3 vols., Leipzig, 1843-45, new edition 1888-1913, and by Charles Miiller 
(only Books I—V of a total of eight), with Latin translation, 2 vols. and 
atlas, Paris, 1883 and 1901. 


58 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 





sola 


MUST 
aged 










Marie y, me 
Pam on 
Mav a) 

















fe os 
SF 


4, Ue ‘i 
i, ae, RA 


Se 
~ Ee 


oy Fi 
‘, YY rae 5 
: Waser i \Sieatin 7 
as ra ee VSARPC AA 
a JY eC Oy 
LoS AMIAY SONS, & 
EAN 8. 4 
% *% 
ra) . X 
> eas . oa 
%, 4 





” 
ta, Use 


e “SINVS- BARRARICVS- . 


Fig. 3—Ptolemy’s map of the known world in 150 A.D. from the printed 


bian geography the three Bartholomew Columbus 
sketch maps (ca. 1503) found by Wieser in Florence,® 


6F. R. von Wieser: Die Karte des Bartolomeo Colombo iiber die 
vierte Reise des Admirals, text and facsimile of three maps, reprint from 
Mitt. des Inst. fiir Osterreichische Geschichtsforschung, Innsbruck, 1893 
(maps reproduced in Nordenskidld, Periplus, pp. 167—169). 


BELIEF IN ASIA Do 





nal 


“SINVS 
EAGONICYS, 








Oty 
daninigons 0G 


_ anchovy 





snp” x 
com) one 


edition of 1490 (after the facsimile in Nordenskiédld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 1). 


(Figs. 5-7), to which may be added the Behaim globe? 
(Fig. 4) and the map of Juan de la Cosa’ (Fig. Io 


7E. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe, London, 
1908, with facsimile of the gores of the globe. 

8 Antonio Vascano: Ensayo biografico del célebre navegante y con- 
sumado cosmégrafo Juan de la Cosa y descripcién é historia de su famosa 






60 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


see also Pl. II). With these materials we may pro- 
ceed to reconstruct the Columbian geography of 1502. 


THE GEOGRAPHICAL BACKGROUND 


We are not as much concerned with the southern 
coast of Asia (beyond the question of its extent east 
and west) as we are with the eastern coast. Ptolemy? 
made the distance from the Fortunate Isles (Canary 
Islands), his prime meridian on the west, to Catti- 
gara on the east, 180° (Fig. 3 and Pl. Il)- Ptolemy 
also recorded the ideas of Marinus of Tyre, who 
made the same distance equal 225° instead of 180°. 
Columbus accepted the views of Marinus in pref- 
erence to those of Ptolemy. When, on his fourth 
voyage, he had learned from the natives of Veragua 
of the gold mines of Ciguare and of the sea be- 
yond, he wrote:!° 


Footnote 8, continued 


carta geografica, Madrid, 1892, text in Spanish, French, and English, 
accompanied by a facsimile of the map in the original colors edited by 
Canovas Vallejo and Traynor. There are reproductions in black and 
white in [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géographie, ou recueil 
d'anciennes cartes européennes et orientales . . . Paris [1842-62], Pls. 
XVI, 1, 2, 3; and Nordenskidld, Periplus, Pls. 43-44. 

9 A. E. Nordenskidld: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early History of Cartog- 
raphy, transl. by J. A. Ekeléf and C. R. Markham, Stockholm, 1889, 
Pl. r (our Fig. 3) and p. 4. 

10 Letter of July 7, 1503, on the fourth voyage. In Raccolta, Part I, 
Vol. 2, pp. 175-205; reference on pp. 183-184. The version on pp. 296— 
312 of M. F. de Navarrete: Relaciones, cartas y otros documentos con- 
cernientes 4 los cuatro viages que hizo el Almirante D. Crist6bal Col6én 
para el descubrimiento de las Indias occidentales (forming Vol. 1 of his 
“Coleccién de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar fos 
Espafioles desde fines del siglo XV, 5 vols., Madrid, 1825-37), in mod- 


BELIEF IN ASIA 61 


Tanbién esto que io supe por palabra, avialo io sabido 
largo por escrito. Ptolomeo creié de aver bien remedado 
a Marino, i ahora se falla su escritura bien propinqua al 
cierto. Ptolomeo assienta Catigara 4 doce lineas lejos 
de su occidente, que él assenté sobre el cabo de S. Vi- 
cente, en Portugal, dos grados i un tercio. Marino en 
.I5. lineas constituié la tierra, é términos. . . . El 
mundo es poco; el injuto d’ello es seis partes, la séptima 
sdlamente cubierta de agua. La experiencia ia esta vista, 
i la escrivi por otras letras, i con adornamiento de la 
Sacra Escritura . . . (What I learned from the mouth 
of these people I already knew in detail from books. 
Ptolemy thought that he had satisfactorily corrected 
Marinus, and yet this latter appears to have come very 
near the truth. Ptolemy places Catigara at a distance 
of twelve lines [hours] from his western meridian, which 
he fixes at two degrees and a third beyond Cape St. 
Vincent in Portugal. Marinus comprises the earth and 
its limits in fifteen lines [hours]." . . . The world is but 
small; out of seven divisions of it the dry part occupies 
six, and the seventh only is covered by water. Ex- 
perience has shown it, and I[ have written it with quota- 
tions from the Holy Scripture, in other letters. . . .) 


Since Columbus was seeking India, on the southern 
coast of Asia, as well as Cathay, on the eastern 


ernized Spanish, with English translation, is reproduced in R. H. Major, 
transl. and edit.: Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, With Other 
Original Documents, Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World, 
2nd edit., Hakluyt Soc. Publs., 1st Series, Vol. 43, London, 1870, pp. 175- 
211; reference on pp. 183-184. 

1 Cf. the legend between Africa and South America on one of the 
Bartholomew Columbus maps (Fig. 7): ‘‘Secéddo Marino e Col® da C. 
Sa Vicétio a Cathicara g. 225, sO hore 15. Secddo Ptol. infine a Cattigara 
g. 180 che sia hore 12.” 


62 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


coast, the Ganges River, India intra Gangem, India 
extra Gangem, the Magnus Sinus, Taprobana Insula, 
the Aurea Chersonesus, the Indicum Mare, and 
Cattigara are places of importance (Fig. 3 and PI. I). 
With this our concern for southern Asia stops. 

Ptolemy did not interpret his information con- 
cerning Asia in such a way as to allow for an eastern 
coast within the limits of the known world.” In- 
stead, he understood that the coast line turned 
southwards to form a Magnus Sinus (China Sea). 
The eastern coast of the Magnus Sinus with the 
Terra Incognita joined the African coast, making a 
landlocked sea of the Indicum Mare (Fig. 3). 

In the Middle Ages additional information brought 
back by traders and travelers gave positive knowl- 
edge of the eastern coast of Asia. Of a number of 
these travelers Marco Polo is the best known; and 
from his account several prominent features of the 
eastern Asiatic coast were derived.“ These are 
reflected in the representation of this region on the 
Behaim globe™ (Fig. 4). Cipangu was a great island 
situated 1500 miles eastward from Mangi. What 
we call China was divided into two parts: the 
northern, called Cathay; the southern, Mangi. Mangi 


2G, E. Gerini: Researches on Ptolemy’s Geography of Eastern Asia 
(Further India and Indo-Malay Archipelago), Asiatic Society Mono- 
graphs No. 1, London, 1909, pp. 25, 302-304, and map at end of volume. 

18 Sir Henry Yule, trans. and edit.: The Book of Ser Marco Polo the 
Venetian Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, 3rd edit., 
revised . . . by Henri Cordier, 2 vols., London, 1903; reference in 
Vol. 2, pp. 253-298. 

144 Ravenstein, op, cit., Map 2. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 63 


faced south upon a great indentation of the sea, 
called the Sea of Chin. In this sea were a vast 
number of islands (estimated at 7459), mostly in- 
habited. The Sea of Chin bounded Mangi on the 
south for 1500 miles. The coast ended somewhat 
south of west, and two months were required to 










30 


SMI 
La ON 

















eM 


Pike 


Pil % 


Ving 
Zs LZ 





Fig. 4—The eastern hemisphere on Behaim’s globe of 1492 (after the 
reduction to map form in Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, Map 2). 

The geographical features in bold outline with names in heavy lettering 
were derived from Ptolemy; those in broken outline with underscored 
names, from Marco Polo; the remainder from other sources. 


64 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


navigate it. From western Mangi the shore turned 
south. The country on the west of the Sea of Chin 
was called Ciamba. Much gold dust was found on 
the coasts of the Sea of Chin. South and southeast 
from Ciamba, at a distance of 1500 miles, was Java, 
reputed to be the largest island in the world. Twelve 
hundred miles south and southwest of Ciamba was 
Lochac (or Loach), a part of the mainland. To the 
south of Lochac were two great islands, named 
Pentan and Java Minor. Java Minor was so far 
south that the North Star was not visible. 

Besides the Behaim globe several maps embodying 
these features were constructed in the time of Co- 
lumbus: of these the mappemonde of Henricus Mar- 
tellus Germanus,” the already mentioned Bartho- 
lomew Columbus maps" (Figs. 5-7), and the Wald- 
seemuller (1507) map!? may be taken as examples. 
The Bartholomew Columbus maps attempt, of course, 
to harmonize the new discoveries with previous knowl- 
edge; the others either do not contain the new dis- 
coveries or, like Waldseemuller, apparently separate 
them from Asia. 


18 Of uncertain date, about 1489 according to Ravenstein, op. cit., 
pp. 66-67. Reproduced in Nordenskiéld, Periplus, p. 123. 

16 See, above, footnote 6. 

17 Joseph Fischer and F. R. von Wieser: The Oldest Map with the 
Name America of the Year 1507 and the Carta Marina of the Year 1516 
by M. Waldseemiiller (Ilacomilus), text in English and German and 
facsimile of both maps, Innsbruck, 1903. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 65 


Map TO ILLUSTRATE THESE GEOGRAPHICAL 
IDEAS 


We may now attempt to construct a map embody- 
ing the ideas that were familiar to Columbus. The 
accompanying map (PI. II) is based upon a com- 
parison of Ptolemy, Behaim’s globe, the Bartholo- 
mew Columbus maps, and the writings of Columbus. 
The configuration of Ptolemy (Fig. 3) is used for the 
southern coast of Asia, stretched in longitude, how- 
ever, to conform to Marinus of Tyre, with whose 
views as to the eastward extension of Asia Columbus 
agreed, as we have seen (p. 29). This stretching is 
only necessary east of the crossing of the Euphrates 
at Hieropolis, 72° east of Ptolemy’s prime meridian 
(Fig. 3; beyond the border of Pl. II), as west of this 
point Ptolemy accepted the longitudes of Marinus of 
Tyre.!® Longitudes east of the Euphrates are ob- 
tained by subtracting 72° from the Ptolemaic longi- 
tude to obtain a base, then multiplying the remainder 
by 17/12 so as to place Cattigara 225° east of the 
prime meridian (Marinus’ conception) instead of 
180° (Ptolemy’s conception).!® (To convert these 
longitudes to longitudes from Greenwich, 17 24° should 
be subtracted, this being the difference between Green- 
wich and the conventional meridian of Ferro, the 

18 Vignaud, Histoire critique, Vol. 1, p. 256; Nordenskidld, Facsimile- 


Atlas, p. 4. 
1917/12 = ratio of 225—72 to 180—72. 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


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BELIEF IN ASIA 69 


equivalent of Ptolemy’s prime meridian in the For- 
tunate Isles.) At Cattigara as the coincident point 
(“Cael” on the Behaim globe) there is then added 
to the Ptolemy configuration the coast line of eastern 
Asia according to the Behaim globe.?° 

Two other land positions are shown on the map. 
One is the eastern coast of Asia transposed so as to 
bring the cape at Zaitun on the same meridian as the 
eastern end of Cuba. This illustrates Columbus’ 
idea of the position of the continental shore as it 
confronted him on his fourth voyage, inasmuch as 
from his first and second voyages he took Cuba to 
be the mainland of Asia, its eastern end correspond- 
ing to the cape at Zaitun. 

The other is the coastal outline of America from 
the Juan de la Cosa world map of 1500,?! which in- 
corporates Columbus’ discoveries to that date, super- 
imposed in such a manner that the position of the 
Strait of Gibraltar on the Cosa map is made to coin- 
cide with its true position on the modern map. The 
coast is drawn in the same relative position according 
to latitude and longitude as on the Cosa map, the 
equator and Tropic of Cancer on that map affording 
an evaluation of the length of degree used in its rec- 
tangular projection. The resulting image brings 
Espafiola, as located from Columbus’ own voyages, 
close to Cipangu and illustrates how plausible it 
was for him to take the one for the other. 


20 Ravenstein, op. cit., Map 2. 
21 See, above, footnote 8 and, below, Fig. ro. 


70 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


IDENTIFICATIONS MADE BY COLUMBUS 


It was on his first voyage that Columbus identified 
Espafiola as Cipangu; he confused the name Civao, a 
local Indian name, with Cipangu. Cuba he took to 
be a part of Mangi: its northern shore trended in the. 
direction indicated by Behaim and Martellus. The 
southern coast of Cuba seemed to him to correspond 
with the southern coast of Mangi. He had coasted 
Cuba for a great distance—335 leagues on his 
second voyage—until he became convinced that 
Cuba was the mainland. An oath affirming this 
belief was administered to the crew; after which 
Columbus turned back to Espafiola. The puzzling 
thing about Cuba was the fact that it did not seem 
to contain the great cities he looked for, and that it 
was so close to Espafiola, or Cipangu. On the third 
voyage Columbus had gone farther south and 
touched the coast of South America near the mouth 
of the Orinoco River. Here, again, he found partial 
confirmation of his geographical beliefs. The land 
found was almost exactly in the position of islands 
indicated by Behaim, modified by the addition of 
the 45° to Ptolemy. The 7459 islands were there 
and were inhabited by savages, as both Marco Polo 
and Mandeville had said. The disturbing factor 
this time was the evidently continental proportions 
of the land. 


22 Quoted with translation (after Navarrete, pp. 143-149 of Coleccién 
de documentos concernientes a la persona, viages y descubrimientos del 
Almirante D. Crist6bal Colén, forming Vol. 2 of the work cited in foot- 
note 10) in Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 322-332. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 71 


Of course, on his first voyage Columbus had not 
seen the Behaim globe and probably not the Mar- 
tellus mappemonde. But maps are rarely the origi- 
nal compositions of map makers; they are made 
from earlier maps and other data. Behaim and 
Columbus drew their geographical ideas from the 
same source. The map constructed by Ravenstein 
to show Behaim’s use of Marco Polo (Fig. 4) will go 
far to justify a presumption that Columbus had 
similar ideas. The hypothesis may be adopted; it 
will be justified if the movements and writings of 
Columbus harmonize with the hypothesis. This 
study endeavors to show that his actions and his 
writings cannot be made to harmonize with any 
other cartographical hypothesis so far advanced. 


MOVEMENTS OF COLUMBUS AS REFLECTION OF 
His VIEWS 


It has been contended that, if Columbus really 
believed himself to be on the coast of Asia on his 
fourth voyage, he would have directed his efforts to 
following the new lands either north or south to the 
regions so well known in theory to all cosmog- 
raphers.”? That is exactly what he tried to do. He 
had a choice of turning either north or south, and 
he himself gives his reason for not turning north. 
Let us briefly reconsider his experience. 

On his first voyage he had turned south, when on 
the northeast coast of Cuba, because it was winter 


23 Harrisse, op. cit., p. 105. 


ip CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


and he did not wish to enter northern latitudes at 
that season.2t On this second voyage he had ex- 
plored the southern coast of Cuba with the idea, ac- 
cording to his friend Andrés Bernaldez, curate of the 
village of Los Palacios near Seville, of returning to 
Europe around the southern coast of Asia and either 
by the south of Africa or by the Red Sea and the 
Mediterranean.” 

On his fourth voyage he was completing the work 
begun on the second. It being late in July, 1502, 
when he reached the southern coast of Cuba, he ex- 
pected the voyage to last over into the winter sea- 
son; and indeed it was the following late summer 
before it was completed. Under these circumstances, 
he turned southwest for the India of the Ganges. In 
so doing he was sailing from one point on the coast 
of Asia, to another point on the same coast by a short 
cut, as is apparent from the map (PI. II). Pedro 
de Ledesma, the chief pilot, testified under oath be- 
fore the fiscal that Columbus ran southwest in search 
of Asia.22 When the fleet sighted the coast of Hon- 
duras it was recognized as the coast of Ciamba. 


24 Letter to Luis de Santangel dated Feb. 15, 1493, with postscript 
of March 14, 1493, in Raccolta, Part I, Vol. I, pp. 120-135, reference on 
p. 121; also in Major, Select Letters, 2nd edit., pp. 1-18, reference on p. 3. 

2 Andrés Bernaldez: Historia de los Reyes Catélicos D. Fernando y 
Da. Isabel, 2 vols., Granada, 1856 (also Seville, 1870), Ch. 123, as 
cited by Irving, op. cit., Book 7, Ch. 4, on the basis of the then still 
unpublished work. 

2 Deposition of Pedro de Ledesma, Seville, Feb. 12, 1513: “‘é de alli 
corrieron en sur sudueste en busca del Asya, que es en la tierra firme”’ 
(Cesareo Fernandez Duro: De los pleitos de Colén, 2 vols., Madrid, 


BELIEF IN ASIA 73 


The plan was to follow this coast in a southerly and 
ultimately westerly direction past Java Major, 
Pentan, Seilan, the Strait of Malacca, and into the 
Indian Ocean to the India of the Ganges. 

When the coast was found to run east and west 
nothing was more natural, on such an hypothesis, 
than for Columbus to turn eastwards. He was by 
theory on the eastern shore of Asia: to go south he 
should keep the shore on his right; to keep it on his 
left would lead him back around the coast of Ciamba 
and Mangi to Espafiola. Unless Columbus was 
guided almost entirely by such a theory he would 
certainly have expected to find his strait north in- 
stead of south from Honduras, because he had en- 
countered strong northwestward currents as he 
crossed the sea from Cuba to Honduras. But he 
persisted in his course to the south, rounded Cape 
Gracias 4 Dios, and proceeded down the coast of 
Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. The east- 
ward trend of the coast did not worry him because 
Marco Polo had described the course from Ciamba 
as between south and southeast to Java.?” More- 
over, the country was full of gold, as Polo had de- 
scribed the lands bordering the Sea of Chin. If 
further confirmation were needed, the natives told 


1892-94, in ‘“‘Colecci6n de documentos inéditos relativos al descubrimi- 
ento, ee aieta y organizacion de las antiguas posesiones espafiolas 
de ultramar,’’ 2nd series, Vols. 7 and 8, Real Academia de Historia, 
Madrid; reference in Vol. 7, p. 263). 

27 Marco Polo, Book 3, Ch. 6 (Yule, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 272-275). 


74 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


him of the sea on the other side of Veragua at nine 
days’ journey,?* which fitted in with his theory that 
he was then on the eastern side of the Lochac, or 
Loach, peninsula. 

Notice again the situation: Columbus was on the 
Caribbean coast of Central America (the land was 
called Veragua); he had come from Espafola (or 
Cipangu) ; past Cuba (or Mangi); down the coast of 
Central America (or Ciamba). By continuing south 
he would pass between Asia and the continental land 
discovered on his third voyage, in 1498. Ciamba 
was on a peninsula surrounded on three sides by the 
sea. On the other side the land was called Ciguare: 
Ciguare had “‘the same bearings with respect to 
Veragua, as Tortosa has to Fontarabia, or Pisa to 
Venice,’’?9 i.e. they were on opposite sides of a pe- 
ninsula. Columbus also understood the Indians to 
tell him that, on the other side, the people wore 
clothes; they had ships which carried guns; they 
had fairs and markets; they knew the pepper plant; 
and had horses which they used in battle. At ten 
days’ distance from Ciguare, they also said, was the 
country of the Ganges River. The land of Ciguare, 
the Aurea Chersonesus, and the Ganges country were 
therefore, in the mind of Columbus, all neighbor- 
ing. Columbus contended that the mines of the 
Aurea Chersonesus, where, according to Josephus, 


28 Letter of July 7, 1503, in Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 183; also, with 
English translation, in Major, op. cit., p. 181. 
29 Major, op. cil., p. 182 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 183). 


BELIEF IN ASIA 75 


Solomon obtained his gold, were the identical mines 
of Veragua. 

At this point it is of interest to notice the similarity 
of the statements of Columbus and of Behaim relat- 
ing to these mines. Columbus said :3° 


There were brought to Solomon at one journey six 
hundred and sixty-six quintals of gold, besides what the 
merchants and sailors brought, and that which was paid 
in Arabia. Of this gold he made two hundred lances 
and three hundred shields, and the entablature which 
was above them was also of gold and ornamented with 
precious stones: many other things he made likewise of 
gold, and a great number of vessels of great size, which 
he enriched with precious stones. This is related by 
Josephus in his Chronicle ‘de Antiquitatibus’’; mention 
is also made of it in the Chronicles and in the Book of 
Kings. Josephus thinks that this gold was found in the 
Aurea; if it were so, I contend that these mines of the 
Aurea are identical with those of Veragua. 


Behaim placed a legend on his globe just below the 
mouth of the Ganges which read :*#! 


In the Book of Genesis it is stated that this country 
through which flows the Ganges is called Havilla. The 
best gold in the world is said to grow there. In Holy 
Writ, in the 3rd Book of Kings, chapters 9 and 10, it is 
written that King Solomon sent his ships hither and had 
brought from Ophir to Jerusalem of this gold and valu- 
able pearls and precious stones. This country of Giilat 


30 Major, op. cit., pp. 203-204 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 201). 
31 Ravenstein, op. cil., p. 94. 


76 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


and Ophir, through which flows the river Ganges or the 
water of Gion, belonged together. 


With this belief, why did Columbus not go on and 
reach the Ganges country? He tells us why.” 
“With one month of fair weather I shall complete 
my voyage. As I was deficient in ships, I did not 
persist in delaying my course.’ He returned to 
Espafiola because his boats were in such condition 
that he simply could go no farther. The voyage 
was pressed to the extreme limit of endurance. In 
fact, two of his vessels had to be abandoned on the 
coast of Veragua. The other two had to be beached 
in Jamaica before reaching Espanola. 

The principal discrepancy between what Colum- 
bus found and what he expected to find was the 
absence of the great cities and the great trading 
fleets. On this score he writes®* that the absence of 
horses with saddles and poitrels and bridles of gold 
‘“‘ig not to be wondered at, for the lands on the sea- 
coast are only inhabited by fishermen, and moreover 
I made no stay there, because I was in haste to 
proceed on my voyage.” 

Hitherto the question as to whether Columbus did 
or did not believe that he had reached the coast of 


32 Major, op. cit., p. 206 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 202). Cf. also 
Major, p. 193 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 194). 

33 Major, op. cit., p. 199 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 198). On the 
Catalan atlas of 1375 (fascimile in ‘“‘Choix de documents géographiques 
conservés a la Bibliothéque Nationale,’’ Paris, 1883, Pls. 9-20; also in 
Nordenskidéld’s ‘‘Periplus,’’ Pls. 11-14) the southeastern coast of Asia is 
depicted with naked fishermen in the sea. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 14 


Asia has been argued, almost exclusively, from the 
standpoint of whether he was right or wrong. Since 
he was very far wrong, it is an easy step to the in- 
ference that he knew he was not on the coast of 
Asia. The question should not, however, be ap- 
proached in this way. We should endeavor to put 
ourselves in the position of Columbus and ask 
whether it were possible for another person to reach 
his conclusion. As is well known, many people in 
his time maintained that the land discovered by 
Columbus was not Asia; there was a conflict of two 
schools of geography: the Marinus of Tyre-Colum- 
bian (as we might call one of them) and the Ptolemaic. 
In view of the vague knowledge of the East, the 
uncertainty as to the size of the earth, and the sur- 
prising parallel of what Columbus had found in the 
West Indies with what was then believed of the East, 
there seems little reason to doubt that anyone in the 
position of Columbus might well have believed or per- 
suaded himself that he had reached Asia. Columbus 
never discovered his error; or, possibly, we should say 
that it was never proved to him that he was in error. 


THE VESPUCIUS VOYAGE OF 1497 


Incidentally, this discussion of the fourth voyage 
tends to throw some light on the disputed voyage of 
Vespucius of 1497. Fiske** and Varnhagen* believe 

84 Fiske, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 53-54. 


35 F, A. de Varnhagen: Amerigo Vespucci: Son caractére, ses écrits 
(méme les moins authentiques), sa vie et ses navigations, Lima, 1865; 


78 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


the voyage to have been made and the route to have 
led through the Strait of Yucatan, around the Gulf 
of Mexico, and out by the Strait of Florida. But 
granted the probability of the voyage, this route does 
not seem likely. Columbus could not have retained 
his theories of Asiatic geography if his friend Ves- 
pucius or anyone else, before 1502, had proved Cuba 
to be an island. It is decidedly improbable that if 
a friend like Vespucius had made a voyage through 
the Straits of Yucatan and Florida in 1497 Columbus 
would not have known about it in 1502. It is true 
that Juan de la Cosa depicts Cuba as an island in 
1500 (Pl. II and Figs. 10 and 11); but that is only a 
theoretical delineation. Such a striking feature as 
the Florida peninsula could hardly have escaped no- 
tice if the coast lines had been drawn as the result of 
actual discovery. This part of the La Cosa map is 
easily understood if we assume it to have been drawn 
as a result of hearsay evidence obtained from the 
Indians. The Indians told Columbus on his first voy- 
age that Cuba was an island.* 

From the possible connection of some of the names 
on the Cantino map with the 1497 voyage of Ves- 
pucius, it seems more probable, as is discussed later 
(pp. 136-138), that this voyage did not extend west- 


Footnote 35, continued 


idem: Le premier voyage de Amerigo Vespucci définitivement expliqué 
dans ses détails, Vienna, 1869; idem: Nouvelles recherches sur les derniers 
voyages du navigateur florentin et le reste des documents et éclaircisse- 
ments sur lui, Vienna, 1870. 

86 Major, op. cit., p. 3 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 122). 


BELIEF IN ASIA 79 


ward beyond the Caribbean Sea and that the return 
was made by way of the Bahamas. 


EXAMINATION OF THE VIEWS OF HARRISSE 


We may now turn to examine the reasons which 
have led Harrisse and Thacher to doubt that Colum- 
bus believed himself on the coast of Asia in 1502. 

The first point urged by Harrisse is expressed as 
follows :* 


True it is that, in 1494, he [Columbus] declared, and 
compelled his crews to affirm before a royal notary, that 
Cuba was a continent, and that it could be reached by 
land: . . . As late as 1503, he wrote to Ferdinand and 
Isabella that he had actually reached the province of 
Mango, adjoining Cathay:. . . Withal, the appearance 
is that within himself he thought otherwise. Unfortu- 
nately, to acknowledge his doubts in that respect would 
have been belying the motives of his great enterprise, re- 
ducing materially the importance of the results obtained, 
and leading the Spanish government to discontinue the 
attempt. 


It is true that one school of geographers did deny 
that Columbus reached Asia; this group followed 
Ptolemy and did not stretch Asia 45° eastward, as 
did Marinus and Columbus. It is exactly this 45° 
difference that separates Asia and the new discoveries 
of Spain on the Waldseemiiller map of 1507.% On 
the other hand, some Spanish authorities believed, in 


37 Harrisse, Discovery of North America, p. 104. 
38 Fischer and von Wieser, work cited above on p. 64, footnote 17. 


80 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


1513 and even as late as 1540, that the new lands 
were part of Asia. It was years, in fact, before 
this idea was entirely abandoned. If that be true, 
something more than a surmise will be necessary 
to permit us to set aside the direct evidence that 
Columbus regarded himself as being on the coast of 
Asia in 1502. 
Again, Harrisse says :*° 


The notions of Columbus concerning the form of the 
east coast of Asia must have been very clear and positive 
in his mind, but such only as we find it depicted in all 
globes and maps, from Ptolemy’s to Behaim’s. Had he 
therefore continued to believe that the new lands formed 
part of the Asiatic continent, his efforts would all have 
been directed so as to follow simply, northward or south- 
ward, the coast of regions which, theoretically at least, 
were known by every cosmographer. Nor, when Colum- 
bus expressed the intention of returning to Spain by way 
of the East, could he have thought of any other route 
than the rounding of the Malacca peninsula. 


The latter part of this argument has already been 
dealt with: to go south along the Asiatic coast to In- 
dia was exactly what Columbus attempted, as will be 
seen by reference to the map (PI. II). As for the first 
part, it is surprising that Harrisse should make such 
astatement. Anyone who has ever looked at the map 
of Ptolemy (Fig. 3) knows that he represented land, 
and not ocean, beyond his farthest known world. Be- 
sides, all the early maps of eastern Asia are not alike. 


89 Harrisse, op. cit., p. TOS. 


BELIEF IN ASFA 81 


The Behaim globe (Fig. 4) and the Martellus map*® 
indicate a great peninsula on the southeastern coast 
of Asia, which does not appear on the Catalan atlas of 
1375.1 Again, the Fra Mauro map of 1459* is wholly 
different from either the Catalan atlas or the Behaim 
globe as regards the eastern coast. It is really incon- 
ceivable that Harrisse should-have meant what he 
said. Of course Columbus had ideas about the eastern 
coast of Asia; and it would appear that those ideas 
were very nearly the ideas of Behaim, modified as to 
longitude. 

Furthermore, Harrisse stresses the point that Co- 
lumbus wrote of the coast of Paria as an immense 
region hitherto unknown.“ So it was. It was a 
Nuevo Mundo, as Fiske points out, and as such it 
is clearly marked on the Bartholomew Columbus map 
(Fig. 5)—it was something which had not been de- 
scribed by Marco Polo or anybody else. Columbus 
never pretended that the Costa de Perlas was Asia. 
To admit that it was new and hitherto unknown did 
not in any way affect the question of Honduras being 
a part of Asia, as viewed by Columbus in 1502. When 
Pedro de Ledesma declared under oath that Colum- 
bus sailed southwest from Jamaica in search of Asia, 
Harrisse thinks he has positive proof that Columbus 
did not then believe that he was actually exploring 


40 See, above, p. 64, footnote I5. 
41 See, above, p. 20, footnote 25. 
42 See, above, p. 20, footnote 26. 
43 Harrisse, op. cit., p. 105. 

44 Fiske, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 117. 


82 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


the Asiatic coast. By reference to the map (PI. IJ) 
we may, however, see that, if Cuba was Mangi and 
Honduras was Ciamba, Harrisse’s point falls to the 
ground. 

Finally, Harrisse is of opinion* that the Asiatic 
theory involves ‘“‘the absurd supposition that Colum- 
bus believed Asia had two east coasts, one facing 
Oceanus Indicus, the other facing Oceanus Atlan- 
ticus,’’ because he expected to find somewhere a 
strait that would lead him to the Ganges region. 
Again, a simple reference to the map is sufficient 
answer to Harrisse’s argument: Asia had an east 
coast and a south coast; Columbus believed himself 
on the east coast; he was trying to round the Lochac 
peninsula, to reach the south coast on the Indian 
Ocean. 


EXAMINATION OF THE VIEWS OF THACHER 


Thacher is equally positive that Columbus did not 
believe himself to be on the coast of Asia.‘ 

Such a belief, in Thacher’s opinion, would have 
been ‘‘contrary to his expression of having found a 
New World.”’ As has just been pointed out, however, 
the term ‘‘New World,” used by Columbus, had refer- 
ence to the continental mass back of the Costa de 
Perlas. It had, originally, no reference to the islands 
and the northern mainland. 

45 Harrisse, op. cit., p. 106. 


46 Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 616-621 (the three quotations are from 
pp. 617-618). 


BELIEF IN ASIA 83 


Again, Thacher argues that this belief would have 
been “‘contrary to the information received from the 
Indians in Veragua, and which he himself accepted 
as true, that from there westwardly by land was a 
nine days’ journey to another sea, . . . and that 
this sea would carry him to Cathay or to Catigara.”’ 
Now the fact is that Columbus did not understand 
the Indians to say this. He could not and did not 
confuse the positions of Cathay and Cattigara: Ca- 
thay was a great country situated north of Mangi 
and facing the Eastern Sea—the Atlantic, according 
to Columbus; Cattigara, on the other hand, was 
placed by Ptolemy on the southeastern coast of the 
Indicum Mare and hence was considered by Colum- 
bus to be on the opposite side of the great peninsula 
separating the Eastern from the Indian Sea. 

The next point which Thacher brings up is of some 
importance. The belief, if entertained by Colum- 
bus, would, he says, have been “contrary to his 
knowledge of distances traversed on the surface of 
the globe both by land and by water.’ A glance 
at the Bartholomew Columbus map will indicate as 
much (Fig. 5). From the first and second voyages 
it was evident that Cuba and Espafiola were too 
close to each other to correspond with the accepted 
relative positions of Mangi and Cipangu, as which 
they were respectively identified by Columbus. Some 
compromise had to be made: the Asiatic main- 
land had either to be moved eastward nearer Es- 
pafiola or placed at a greater distance from it, as Bar- 
tholomew Columbus did on his map. The distances 


84 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


presented a real difficulty; but the argument loses 
much of its force if we extend our inquiry to a study 
of the maps made between 1500 and 1600. In these 
maps we find both the Spanish and the Portuguese 
territories displaced, progressively, by too great a 
longitude. The Portuguese longitudes are too great 
to the eastward; the Spanish too great to the west- 
ward. 














Displacement of Longitudes Malay 

Cape of Cape Cape Peninsula 

Good Hope Guardafui Comorin (Singapore) 
Behaim (1492)* 12" 207 60 ° 

La Cosa (1500)*8 — oti 

Ruysch (1508)*° —— | ores ise 40° 
Waldseemiiller (1507)°° 107 cite o 
Ribero (1529)* tou inn is. Se 
Cabot (1544)” 12a 18° 25° 45° 
Ortelius (1570) 10” 10° 15° 10" 
Hakluyt (1599)*! 10° 10° 107 15° 


47 See, above, p. 59, footnote 7. 

48 See, above, p. 59, footnote 8. 

49 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 32. 

50 See, above, p. 64, footnote 17. 

51 Full-size photograph of copy in Grand Ducal Library of Weimar in 
Portfolio 1m in E. L. Stevenson: Maps Illustrating Early Discovery 
and Exploration in America, 1502-1530, Reproduced by Photography 
from the Original Manuscripts, text and 12 portfolios, New Brunswick, 
N. J., 1903 and 1906. Reduced reproduction of copy in archives of 
Collegio di Propaganda Fide, Rome, in Nordenskiéld, Periplus, Pls. 48—49. 

52 A photographic facsimile of the original in the Bibliothéque Na- 
tionale, Paris, is on the walls of the American Geographical Society of 
New York (see E. L. Stevenson: A Description of Early Maps, Originals 
and Facsimiles, 1452-1611, Amer. Geogr. Soc., New York, 1921, pp. 
17-18). Also an outline drawing without the legends, reproduced by 
lithography, in Jomard, op. cit., Pl. XX, 1-4. 

58 Nordenskidid, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 46. 

54 Ibid., Pl. 50. 


BELIEF IN ASIA 85 


It will be noticed that in all cases it was contrary 
to national interest to exaggerate longitude because, 
after going 180° eastwards or westwards from the Line 
of Demarcation, the land fell in the sphere of a 
rival. 

When we turn westward across the Atlantic we 
do not have so clear a case. National interest seems 
to play a part in placing Brazil and Terra de los 
Baccalaos (Newfoundland) too far to the eastward, 
thus bringing more territory within the Portuguese 
sphere; but even then we have Apianus (1520)* 
placing the Panama region 12° too far westward. 
Verrazano (1529)** placed Terra Nova (Newfound- 
land) 12° too far to the east, Florida about right, 
and Vera Cruz 10° too far west. Cabot (1544) dis- 
places Florida westward 12°, eastern Mexico 15°, 
and Lower California 20°. Ortelius (1570) placed 
Florida properly and displaced westward Vera Cruz 
4° and Lower California 30°. Hakluyt (1599) dis- 
placed Florida 5°, Vera Cruz 8°, and Lower Cali- 
fornia 10° westward at the same time that he cor- 
rected the position of Cape Mendocino eastwards by 
45°, still leaving it too far west by 25°. It should also 
be noted that Columbus, in 1494, greatly erred as to 
the length of Cuba. His 335 leagues would make 
about 20° as the length of somewhat less than all of 
the island, whereas its true length is about 10°. One 
has only to give thought to the extreme difficulty of 


55 Tbid., Pl. 38. 
56 Stevenson, Maps IIlustrating Early Discovery, Portfolio 12. 


86 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


correctly determining longitude without our means 
of standard time and exact chronometers, and then 
one marvels at the surprisingly correct results ob- 
tained by the great discoverers. In any case, when 
these facts are carefully studied and the difficulty is 
envisaged of properly determining distance in an 
east-west direction at that time much of the force is 
taken out of Thacher’s criticism. 

The next point of Thacher’s is also of importance. 
Columbus did not find either great cities or great 
fleets. Thacher says®’ that “‘he expected to see none 
of these things’ and that he was simply endeavoring 
to mystify any pilot who should venture to find his 
Veragua—as Ojeda and others had done with regard 
to the Costa de Perlas. We have seen how Columbus 
was disturbed at not finding the great cities and 
fleets and how he partially satisfied himself on that 
score. To prove that Columbus lied to mystify 
others, Thacher quotes®® the letter regarding the 
fourth voyage: 


We found ourselves in the land of Maya. . . Let 
them [the pilots] make known, if they themselves know 
it, the situation of Veragua. I say that they cannot 
give other information or account except that they went 
to some lands where there is much gold and to insist 
that they did this: but they are ignorant of the route by 
which to return there and if they were to go there, they 
would be obliged to make a new discovery of it. 

57 Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 621. 


58 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 618. Cf. Major, op. cit., p. 197 (Raccolta, Part I, 
Vol. 2, p. 198). 


BELIEF IN ASIA 87 


Whatever mystery there was about the location of 
Veragua, it is certain that the Columbus brothers, 
Christopher and Bartholomew, shared each other’s 
ideas in regard to the new discoveries, in view of the 
fact that they had made the fourth voyage together. 
Bartholomew removed whatever mystery there was 
when, in Rome after Christopher’s death to solicit 
the assistance of the Pope in persuading the Spanish 
court to organize a new expedition to colonize the 
lands discovered on that voyage, he gave friar Jerome 
_of San Giovanni in Laterano a description and map of 

Veragua, the equivalent of which map von Wieser 
found on the margin of a copy of Christopher’s letter 
on the fourth voyage written in Jamaica on July 7, 
1503.°° This map (Fig. 5) shows Veragua as a part 
of Asia. Veragua (“‘beragnia”’ on Fig. 5) is a part of 
an isthmus connecting Asia and Mondo Novo. It 
separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Magnus Sinus. 
The map and the letter certainly prove Columbus’ 
Asiatic interpretation of the discoveries on the fourth 
voyage. The alleged mystification put forward by 
Thacher is a slight reason, to say the least, on which 
to throw overboard all the positive assertions of 
Columbus. 

In another place Thacher says:*° 


The reader by this time . . . must be convinced that 
the Admiral was no longer in doubt as to the character 
of his discovery. He knew that he had disclosed another 


59 yon Wieser, op. cit., pp. 4, 5, and 8. 
60 Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 568. 


5 ws ae, . 
Lar Soo 


88 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


continent, and he called it Novus Orbis or Mundus 
Novus. He knew that the New World lay not in the 
India of the Old World, but between it and the marts of 
Europe. He himself had estimated a degree to contain 
fifty-six and two-thirds miles, and he knew that he must 
multiply this by three hundred and sixty to circum- 
navigate the globe. He knew the distance to the ex- 
tremity of India extra Gangem, as measured eastwardly 
from the Canaries, on the map of Ptolemy, four editions 
of whose geography were then already printed and com- 
mon in the world, and he also knew the distance he had 
travelled westwardly from the Canaries. He knew that 
Marco Polo, with whose book he was familiar, since his 
copy was annotated and marked on many a margin, told 
of the coast lines of the lands of the Great Khan and of 
the islands and of powerful peoples out in the China Sea. 
If he knew all this, he knew that between the country 
of the Great Khan and the shores of Europe lay great 
continental lands, and that he—Christopher Columbus 
—and none other was their discoverer. It is time 
history erased from its pages that humiliating sentence 
“Columbus died believing, not that he had found a new 
world, but that he had reached the shores of Asia.” 









In making this statement, Thacher not only ignores 
the fact that medieval geographers were not agre ac 
on the distance to the extremity of India extra Gan. 
gem, but he rejects, apparently, a note of Columbus 
that he himself has quoted.‘ On the margin of his 
copy of the “Imago mundi,” in the handwriting of 
Columbus, we read:* “A fine Occidentis usque ad 


61 Ibid., Vol. 2, p. 568, note 2. 
62 Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 406, No. 486. 


Pry, 


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(southern coast ~~— Se Acilinas San te haw ss meridian as eastern end of Cuba, which Columbus took for Asia. 
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* by eastern coast —— according to Behaim 1492). —? = Coastal outlines in their true position according to modern maps. had at one time considered following to reach India. 


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BELIEF IN ASIA 89 


finem Indie per terram est multo plus quam medietas 
terre, videlicet gradus 180.’’ According to the geog- 
raphers, the distance eastward from western Europe 
to the farthest known east (Lisbon to the east 
coast of China) in degrees of longitude was as fol- 
lows :®8 


Marinus of Tyre (100 A. D.) 2253 
Ptolemy (150) 177°+ 
Catalan atlas (1375) 116° 
Genoese map (1457) 136° 
Fra Mauro (1459) 125% 
Henricus Martellus (1489) 196° 
Laon globe 250° 
Behaim (1492) 234° 
Columbus (1502) 289° 
Actual extent Fi. 


Of course, the farthest east of Asia included more 
land in the later maps than in those of Marinus and 
Ptolemy, both of whom understood that there was 
more land beyond the farthest known world. One 
need only consider for a moment the variants just 
cited to realize that neither Columbus nor any one 
else in his day knew the distance to the extremity of 
India extra Gangem. Instead of knowledge there 
was a very wide difference of opinion among those 
who had given thought to the subject. Columbus 
rejected all the lower figures; and his discoveries had 
in a remarkable manner confirmed his estimates. 
Had Thachef given due thought to pre-Columbian 


63 Mainly according to Ravenstein, op. cit., p. 64, note 4. 


90 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


geography he could not have made the assertion that 
Columbus “‘knew that the New World lay not in the 
India of the Old World, but between it and the marts 
of Europe.”’ 


CONCLUSION 


To conclude, I feel, after studying the documents 
cited, after considering the cartographical knowledge 
that Columbus may have had, and after weighing 
all that Thacher and Harrisse have to say on the 
subject, that no evidence has as yet been advanced 
sufficient to disprove the theory that, in 1502-1503, 
Columbus believed himself to be on the coast of 
Asia. Columbus died so believing. After him, Balboa 
in 1513 so believed. Waldseemiiller and the German 
cartographers did not reject the ideas of Columbus. 
In a modified form they are embodied in the Schéner 
globe (1533) and in the Cabot map of 1544. The 
writings of Castafieda,® the chronicler of the Coro- 
nado expedition, and the famous Gastaldi map of 
1562 are further evidence that many of the succes- 
sors of Columbus continued in the same belief down 
into the middle of the sixteenth century. 


64 Harrisse, of. cit., facing p. 520. 

65 See G. P. Winship: The Coronado Expedition, 1540-1542, Ann. 
Rept. Bur. of Amer. Ethnology for 1892-93, Part I, Washington, 1896, 
pp. 329-613 (Spanish text, pp. 414-469); reference on pp. 512-513 and 
525-526. 

66 Nordenskidld, Periplus, p. 165. 


THE IDENTITY OF “FLORIDA” ON THE 
CANTINO MAP OF 1502 


THE PROBLEM STATED 


It was long supposed that Ponce de Leén was the 
discoverer of Florida. More recently, however, the 
study of the Cantino, Canerio, and 1507 Waldsee- 
miiller maps,! all antedating Ponce’s discovery of 
1513, has led many scholars to place the honor of 


1 The standard reproductions of these maps are as follows: 

(1) the Cantino by E. L. Stevenson: Maps Illustrating Early Dis- 
covery and Exploration in America, 1502-1530, Reproduced by Photog- 
raphy from the Original Manuscripts, text and 12 portfolios, New 
~ Brunswick, N. J., 1903-06, map in Portfolio 1 (the western, Atlantic, half 
of the map has also been reproduced from a tracing by lithography in 
the original colors and accompanies in a separate pocket Henry Harrisse: 
Les Corte-Real et leurs voyages au Nouveau-Monde d’aprés des docu- 
ments nouveaux ou peu connus tirés des archives de Lisbonne et de 
Modéne, Paris, 1883, in series: Recueil de Voyages et de Documents 
Pour Servir a | Histoire de la Géographie, edit. by C. Schafer and A. 
Cordier) ; 

(2) the Canerio by E. L. Stevenson: Marine World Chart of Nicolo 
de Canerio Januensis, 1502 (circa): A Critical Study With Facsimile 
(text, 1908, and facsimile in portfolio, 1907), Amer. Geogr. Soc. and 
Hispanic Soc. of America, New York, 1907-08; 

(3) the Waldseemiiller by Joseph Fischer and F. R. von Wieser: The 
Oldest Map With the Name America of the Year 1507 and the Carta 
Marina of the Year 1516 by M. Waldseemiiller (Ilacomilus), text in 
English and German and facsimile of both maps, Innsbruck, 1903. 

The same feature appears on maps for years afterwards, such as the 
following (cf. Harrisse, work cited in next footnote, pp. 371-372): 

Waldseemiiller gores, 1507 (Fischer and von Wieser, op. cit., p. 14). 

Mappemonde of Glareanus, 1510 (A. E. Nordenskidld: Periplus: An 

Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions 
transl. by F, A. Bather, Stockholm, 1897, p. 173). 


92 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


this achievement upon the brow of some earlier, but 
unknown, navigator. Each of these three maps 
(Figs. 8, 9, I2) contains an island, west of Espafiola, 
occupying the position of Cuba, resembling Cuba in 
shape, but bearing the name “Ilha yssabella,” “‘In- 
sulla issabella,’’ or “‘Isabella Insula.’’ Northwest of . 
Isabella is an unnamed peninsular land which has 
been variously regarded as Asia, Yucatan, Cuba, 
Florida, and as purely imaginary. The identity of 
this land is the subject of the present study. 


ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM BY HARRISSE 


The problem presented by this continental land 
has been analyzed with knowledge and care by Henry 


Footnote 1, continued 


Stobnicza hemispheres, 1512 (idem: Facsimile-Atlas to the Early 
History of Cartography, transl. by J. A. Ekeléf and C. R. 
Markham, Stockholm, 1889, Pl. 34). 

‘‘Admiral’s map”’ in the 1513 Strasburg edition of Ptolemy (Norden- 
skidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 36). 

Hauslaub globe, ca. 1510-15 (J. Luksch: Zwei Denkmale alter Kar- 
tographie, Miit. Geogr. Gesell. in Wien, Vol. 29, 1886, pp. 364- 
373; reference on Pl. 5). 

Schéner globe, 1515 (F. R. von Wieser: Magalhdes-Strasse und 
Austral-Continent auf den Globen des Johannes SchGner, Inns- 
bruck, 1881, Pl. 2; [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la géo- | 
graphie, ou recueil d’anciennes cartes européennes et orientales 

. Paris, [1842-62], Pl. XVII, reproduced in Nordenskidld, 
Facsimile-Atlas, p. 78). 

Carta Marina of Waldseemiiller, 1516 (Fischer and von Wieser, op. 

fg 5 a 


Schéner globe, 1520 (F. W. Ghillany: Der Erdglobus des Martin ~ 


Behaim von 1492 und der des Johann Schéner von 1520, Nurem- 
berg, 1842; von Wieser, Magalh&es-Strasse, Pl. 1). 
Petrus Apianus, 1520 (Nordenskiéld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 38). 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 93 


Harrisse,? and any new discussion must take its de- 
parture from his work. 

The first supposition in regard to the land north- 
west of Isabella was, Harrisse points out, that the 


2 Henry Harrisse: The Discovery of North America: A Critical, 
Documentary and Historic Investigation, London and Paris, 1892, 
Dp. 77-92. 

For literature on the Yucatan theory, see Harrisse, p. 80, note 9. 

Advocates of the Cuban hypothesis are: 

Henry Stevens: Historical and Geographical Notes on the Earliest 


Discoveries in America, 1453-1530, New Haven, 1869. See also 
his ‘‘Johann Schoéner, Professor of Mathematics at Nuremberg,”’ 
London, 1888, p. xviii. 


. Brevoort: Notes on Giovanni da Verrazano and on a Plani- 


sphere of 1529 Illustrating His American Voyage in 1524, Witha 
Reduced Copy of the Map, Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc., Vol. 4, 1873, 
PP. 145-297 (also published separately under the title ‘‘Verrazano 
the Navigator,’’ New York, 1874); reference on p. 210. 


The identification of the land in question with Florida and the eastern 
coast of North America is maintained by: 
F. A. de Varnhagen: Vespuce et son premier voyage, Paris, 1858. 


ays Ge 


See also his ‘‘Amerigo Vespucci: Son caractére, ses écrits (méme 
les moins authentiques), sa vie et ses navigations,’’ Lima, 1865. 
Kohl: A History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North 
America, Particularly the Coast of Maine, from the Northmen 
in 990 to the Charter of Gilbert in 1578, constituting Vol. 1 
of the ‘‘Documentary History of the State of Maine’”’ (Collec- 
tions of the Maine Historical Society, 2nd Series), Portland, 
1869, pp. 149 and 236-239. 


H. H. Bancroft: Central America (History of the Pacific States of 


North America, Vols. 1-3), 3 vols., San Francisco, 1882-87; 
reference in Vol. I, pp. 99-107. 


John Fiske: The Discovery of America, With Some Account of Ancient 


America and the Spanish Conquest, 2 vols., Boston, 1892; 
reference in Vol. 2, pp. 74-82. 


Harrisse, op. cit., pp. 77-92. See also his ‘‘Découverte et évolution 


cartographique de Terre-Neuve et des pays circonvoisins, 1497, 
I501, 1769,’ London and Paris, 1900, pp. 3-75. 


-C. R. Markham, transl. and edit.: The Journal of Christopher Colum- 


bus (During His First Voyage, 1492-93) and Documents Relat- 
ing to the Voyages of John Cabot and Gaspar Corte Real, 
Hakluyt Soc. Publs., 1st Series, Vol. 86, London, 1893, p. xlvii. 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


94 


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95 


Fig. 9—The North Atlantic area on the Canerio world map of about 1504 (from the hand-copied reproduction in 


Kretschmer’s Atlas zur Entdeckung Amerikas, Pl. 8). 


96 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


coast line might be a continuation of the eastern 
seaboard of Asia. He rejects this surmise because 
the Asiatic coast is depicted in its proper place on 
the right-hand side of the Cantino map, as it also is 
on the Canerio and Waldseemiiller maps. 

The second hypothesis was that the land was Yuca- 
tan, inserted upside down “by some unaccountable 
mistake of the cartographer.’’ Harrisse rejects this 
view on the grounds that Yucatan was not known 
until 1517 and that the configuration of the two does 
not at all coincide. 

The theory that the land was purely imaginary 
cannot, Harrisse thinks, be entertained in presence of 
the fact that along the coast there are as many as 
twenty-two place names (quoting Kohl) “‘such as a 


Footnote 2, continued 


E. G. Bourne: Spain in America, 1450-1580 (The American Nation: 
A History, Vol. 3), New York, 1904, p. 61. 

E. L. Stevenson: Martin Waldseemiiller and the Early Lusitano- 
Germanic Cartography of the New World, Bull. Amer. Geogr. 
Soc., Vol. 36, 1904, pp. 193-215; reference on p. 200. See also 
his ‘‘Typical Early Maps of the New World,” zbid., Vol. 39, 
pp. 202-224, reference on p. 207; his ‘““Marine World Chart of 
Nicolo de Canerio,”’ already cited, text, p. 32; and his Early 
Spanish Cartography of the New World, With Special Reference 
to the Wolfenbiittel-Spanish Map and the Work of Diego Ribero, 
Proc. Amer. Antiquarian Soc., Worcester, Mass., Vol. 19 (N. S.), 
1909, pp. 369-419, reference on p. 395. 

Woodbury Lowery: The Spanish Settlements Within the Present 
Limits of the United States, 1513-1561, New York and London, 
IQOI, pp. 128-129. 

Neutral in the controversy are: 

J. G. Shea: Ancient Florida, pp. 231-298 in Vol. 2 of Justin Winsor, 
edit.: Narrative and Critical History of America, 8 vols., Boston, 
1884-89; reference on pp. 231-232. 

Justin Winsor: Christopher Columbus, and How He Received and 
Imparted the Spirit of Discovery, Boston, 1891, pp. 421-426. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 97 


navigator might well have distributed on an unknown 
coast discovered by him.”’ 

The Cuban hypothesis is also rejected by Har- 
risse, after a discussion? which, on account of the 
points it brings up, may be quoted at some length: 


Another interpretation has been lately advanced. It 
is to the effect that the continental coast line which 
emerges from the north-western side of the Cantino 
planisphere is Cuba, although that island already figures 
on the map in its own proper place among the Antilles. 
Thus far, not a particle of evidence has been adduced in 
support of the assertion. We will, nevertheless, ex- 
amine this bare averment with as much care as if it re- 
posed on facts, documents, or cogent reasons. 

It will be shown hereafter that, when the Cantino chart 
was made, cartographers, in Spain as well as in Portugal, 
properly considered Cuba as an island. They depicted 
it as such on their maps as early as the year 1500, with 
many names and an outline sufficiently exact to warrant 
the belief that the data used by those map-makers were 
originally obtained de visu. 

Christopher Columbus at first also believed in the in- 
sularity of Cuba, as in his Journal he invariably men- 
tions it as “‘la isla de Cuba.”’ But he soon afterwards 
changed his opinion, and, June 12, 1494, compelled his 
officers and crews to declare that Cuba was a continent. 
January 14, 1495, and even at a later period, he con- 
tinued to profess such an erroneous belief. And, as we 
shall show hereafter, Columbus being alone of that 
opinion, if the configuration which we are discussing ever 
was intended to represent the island of Cuba it must 
have been borrowed from one of his early maps. 


3 Harrisse, Discovery of North America, pp. 83-85. 


98 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


A priori, such a cartographical operation is not im- 
possible. We are able to realise how a planisphere can 
have been first constructed, in Lisbon or elsewhere, 
setting forth the results of Columbus’ earliest voyages, 
and delineating Cuba according to geographical mis- 
conceptions which he still maintained in 1495. To this 
primary map would have been added, several years 
afterwards, the Venezuelan and Brazilian coasts, bor- 
rowed from charts brought by Hojeda or La Cosa, Nifio 
or Guerra, Cabral or De Lemos, and the pilots of Gaspar 
Corte-Real who returned to Lisbon in October, 1501. 
We should thus have the prototype of the Cantino and 
of all early Portuguese charts. But is the Cantino 
planisphere such a map? That is the question. We 
propose to show that it is not, never was, and never 
could be. 

In the first place, a map of that description could not 
have exhibited the continental outline assumed to be 
Cuba and, at the same time, the island of that name, 
depicted insularily, and placed where it lies in reality, 
between Hispaniola and the American continent. It is 
evident that if Columbus and those who actually shared 
the opinion—if there were any such in 1502—did not 
believe in the existence of the zsland of Cuba, they could 
not have inscribed it on their charts. Then it is difficult 
to conceive how cartographers or mariners, including 
Columbus himself in 1495 or at any time, could have 
given to the region which they called Cuba, even when. 
assuming it to be a continent, a shape so different from 
the true form of the portions of the island actually seen 
and surveyed by them, however incomplete may have 
been their knowledge of its configuration. Nor could 
they have represented their supposed Cuba as running 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 99 


from south to north, over a space covering more than 
twenty degrees of latitude. 

The reason for such an impossibility is obvious. In 
November, 1492, the great Genoese had ranged the 
northern coast of that island, first on the north side, 
westward, beyond Nuevitas del Principe; then eastward 
as far as Cape Maysi; and in the summer of 1494 on the 
south side, from its eastern extremity to beyond what 
he called the Isla Evangelista, which, Las Casas says, is 
the Isla de Pinos. It follows that when Columbus de- 
picted Cuba, assuming that he gave it a continental 
aspect, he must have represented that region, so early 
as 1494 or 1495, not as it is on the Cantino chart, viz: 
in the shape of a continent extending straight from south 
to north, but, on the contrary, in the form of a long 
peninsula, running from east to west, and for a very great 
distance, as he claimed to have coasted the region west- 
ward more than three hundred and thirty-five leagues 
. . . a statement which is hyperbolical, as the entire 
length of the island from east to west is only two hundred 
and thirty-five leagues, but which implies nevertheless 
a considerable ranging of the Cuban coast. 

Nor, when coming to depict the point where the pe- 
ninsula was supposed to be soldered to the continent, 
would Columbus or his followers have made the coast 
line trend due north, and especially for a distance em- 
bracing at least twenty degrees of latitude. On the 
contrary, his coast could but run southward, for such was 
his decided opinion, clearly expressed in June, 1494. 
Speaking of the alleged western terminus of Cuba, 
Columbus said: “‘From this point onward, the coast ex- 
tends southwardly” . . . and he compelled all his 
pilots, Francisco Nifio, Alonso Medel, Bartolomé Perez, 


100 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Gaus deynglaterra 
 falfanetra _E 
J Couo de §:Joba = 
*| \S-nicolas 


; fla Sela trenwdab 


meniflee 


S.lugjra Co Selifavte 


Julquer 
\ vequilia | 


(8) i C, de Slax 
a layofori 
G Se $Jo' 


Cauo defcou terto 


ath. 
Sor 
o* 





Fig. 10o—The North Atlantic area on Juan de la Cosa’s world map of 1500 (from the hand-copied reproduction 


in Kretschmer’s Atlas zur Entdeckung Amerikas, Pl. 7). 


101 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 


‘(L ‘lq ‘BoLOUTY YVION JO 
AIDAOINSICT §,aSSlIIVPY Ul JUsMIASIETUS oTydeIS0z0Yd oy} WoIs) de esOD eT ay} UO eOURdSsY pue eqng—II ‘“3Iy 








102 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


and even La Cosa himself, to declare that ‘‘ from there the 
country turned south and south-west.’’ . . . Peter 
Martyr in his epistle of August 9, 1495, reports having re- 
ceived a letter from Columbus stating that ‘‘the shores of 
Cuba trend so much to the southward that he thought 
himself at times very near the equator.’’ Now, instead of 
this alleged south coast, the Cantino chart at that point 
marks a right angle and runs due west; which proves 
that this configuration contradicts even the erroneous 
cosmographical hypothesis advanced by Columbus. 


In the foregoing quotation Harrisse gives certain 
reasons for believing that the unknown land was not 
Cuba. He then proceeds to maintain the same con- 
clusion from a consideration of place names. In 
this he compares‘ the nomenclature of the north- 
western continental region on the Cantino map from 
his own reproduction (Fig. 14) with the names given 
to geographical features along the coast of Cuba by 
Columbus, as reported by himself> and by his con- 


4 Harrisse, op. cit., p. 86. 

5 In his letter on the first voyage, dated Feb. 15, 1493, with postscript 
of March 4, 1493, in Raccolta di documenti e studi pubblicati dalla R. 
Commissione Colombiana pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell’ 
America (6 parts in 14 vols., Rome, 1892-96), Part I, Vol. 1, pp. 120-135. 
Also in modernized Spanish(after Navarrete, Vol. 1, pp.167—-195; see below, 
footnote 17), with English translation, in R. H. Major, transl. and edit.: 
Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, With Other Original Documents, 
Relating to His Four Voyages to the New World, 2nd edit., Hakluyt Soc. 
Publs., 1st Series, Vol. 43, London, 1870, pp. 1-18. Also, with regard to 
the first and second voyages, to the extent that his own words are quoted 
in the accounts of his contemporaries, cited in the next three footnotes. 

The coast of Cuba was charted and names were given to its geo- 
graphical features on the first and second voyages. On the first voyage, 
from Oct. 28 to Dec. 5, 1492, the eastern part of the northern coast was 
outlined, from about Guajaba Key (771%4° W.) to Cape Maisi. On the 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 103 


temporary historians, Las Casas,’ Bernaldez,’ and 
Ferdinand Columbus.’ The two lists, as given by 
Harrisse, are as follows: 


Northwest coast in the Description of Cuba by Co- 
map of Cantino lumbus, Bernaldez, Las 

Casas, and in the ‘‘His- 
torte’ 

Rio de las palmas Rio (and) Puerto San Sal- 

Rio do corno vador 

C. arlear Rio de la Luna 

G. do lurcor Rio de Mares (or) de Mari 

C. do mortinbo Pena de los Enamorados” 

SS lurcar Cabo de Palmas 

El golfo bavo Rio del Sol 

C. do fim do abrill Cabo de Cuba 


second voyage, from April 30 to May 3, 1494, the southern coast was 
followed, first from Cape Maisi to a point opposite Jamaica and then, 
on the return from that island, from May 15 to July 22, from Cape Cruz 
for almost the entire distance westward to a point northwest of the Isle 
of Pines and back again to Cape Cruz. 

6 Bartolomé de las Casas: Historia de las Indias, 5 vols., Madrid, 
1875-76; references in Book I, Chs. 44-50 and 94-97 (Vol. 1, pp. 318— 
361, and. Vol. 2, pp. 49-67). 

7 Andrés Bernaldez: Historia de los Reyes Catélicos D. Fernando y 
Da. Isabel, 2 vols., Seville, 1870 (also Granada, 1856); references in 
Vol. I, pp. 357-369, and Vol. 2, pp. 42-82. 

8 Vita di Cristoforo Colombo descritta da Ferdinando, suo figlio, 
London, 1867 (in English in Churchill’s ‘‘A Collection of Voyages and 
Travels,’’ Vol. 2), Chs. 26—29 (i. e. 27-30) and 53-58 (i. e. 54-59). For 
bibliographical details, see footnote 6 in the second study, p. 36, above. 

9 Columbus does not give this as a name; he merely states that the 
mountains are like the Pefia de los Enamorados near Granada. See the 
Journal under date of Oct. 29, 1492 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 32; 
translated in Markham, op. cit., p. 62) and Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, 
Ch. 44 (Vol, I, p. 319).—G. E. N. 


104 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Cornejo Mar de Nuestra Sefiora 
Rio de do diego Puerto del Principe 

C. delgato Puerto de Santa Catalina 
Punta [Puta] Roixa Cabo del Pico 

Rio de las Almadias Cabo de Campana 
Cabo Santo Puerto Santo 

Rio de los largartos Cabo Lindo 

Las cabras Cabo del Monte 

Lago luncor Alpha y Omega 

Costa alta Puerto grande 

Cabo deb. . a bentura Puerto bueno!® 

Gann ae, Cabo de Cruz 

Cabo d. licotu Jardin de la Reina 
Costa del mar vciano Isla Sancta Maria 


Isla Evangelista 
Punta del Serafin 


The conclusion to which Harrisse comes, on the 
basis of this comparison, is that “there is not a single 
name”’ in the nomenclature of the continental region 
which figures at all in any of the lists ascribed to the 
island of Cuba by Columbus and the chroniclers of 
his voyages. The continental land and the island of 
Cuba cannot, therefore, he says, be one and the 
same. 

In a similar way, he compares" the Cantino names 
with those of La Cosa as interpreted by von Hum- 


10 This name was given, on the second voyage, to a harbor in Jamaica, 
not in Cuba. Cf. Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 94 (Vol. 2, p. 52) and 
Ferdinand Columbus, op. cit., Ch. 54 (i. e. 55), p. 163.—G. E. N. 

11 Harrisse, Discovery of North America, p. 91. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 105 


boldt,” de la Sagra,¥ Jomard,“ and from a photo- 
graph (twice the size of the original) taken directly 
from the original at Madrid in 1890 (Fig. 11). The 
comparative list, as given by Harrisse, is as follows:" 


12 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de l'histoire de la géo- 
graphie du nouveau continent et des progrés de l’astronomie nautique 
aux quinziéme et seiziéme siécles, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39; reference in 
Vol. 5, Pl. 33 (American section of map on half the scale of the original) 
and Pl. 34 (Caribbean section on original scale). 

13 Ramon de la Sagra: Historia fisica, politica y natural de la isla de 
Cuba, Part I: Historia fisica y politica, 2 vols., Paris, 1842, Pl. 1 at end 
of Vol. 2. 

t/Jomard, op, ci., Pl. XVI, 1, 2, 3. 

15 Harrisse, op. cit., Pl. 7, facing p. 91. The official facsimile of the 
map in the original colors, edited by Canovas Vallejo and Traynor, 
accompanies Antonio Vascano: Ensayo biografico del célebre navegante 
y consumado cosmégrafo Juan de la Cosa y descripcién é historia de su 
famosa carta geografica, Madrid, 1892, text in Spanish, French, and 
English. The reproductions by von Humboldt, de la Sagra, and Jomard 
cited in the preceding footnotes are in black and white. That by 
Jomard is of the whole map on the original scale (there is a reduced 
reproduction of the whole map in A. E. Nordenskiéld, Periplus, Pls. 
43-44). Those by von Humboldt and de la Sagra are of the American 
sections only. 

16 Reference to the cited reproductions themselves of the La Cosa map 
show a number of minor discrepancies between Harrisse’s transcription 
of the names and the names as they appear on the reproductions. Thus, 
on the Humboldt reproduction ‘‘Sipica’’ reads ‘‘Sipione’’ and, like 
(C° de S.) Miguel refers to Espafiola, not to Cuba. ‘‘Entubi’’ refers to 
Jamaica. ‘‘Matata’’ reads ‘‘Macata.’’ The following names, which 
have equivalents in the De la Sagra or Jomard lists, appear in Hum- 
boldt’s full-size reproduction but are omitted by Harrisse: Bienbaso, 
Fumos, C°. Negro, C°. de Cuba, Rio de la Vega. On the De la Sagra 
reproduction ‘‘sexto’’ follows ‘‘bien baja’ and ‘“‘junez’’ follows “‘P. del 
Principe,’ to use the order of Harrisse’s list. On the Jomard repro- 
duction, on which the lettering is not always easy to decipher, Harrisse’s 
“fuma’”’ reads “‘luna’’ and ‘“‘fumos’’ follows ‘‘cuba’’ in the order of 
Harrisse’s list. 


106 
CANTINO La Cosa 
(original) (Photo) 
[our Fig. 11] 
Rio de las punta de 
palmas cuba 
Rio do corno clindo 
C. arlear r° de la 
bega 
G. do lurcor © p® sté 
C.domor-_ C. pico 
tinbo 
C. lurcar p. de s. mj. 
el golfo bavo p. de maici 
C. do fim do C. de cuba 
abrill 
Cornejo C. de espto 
Rio de dé ~—_—C. bueno 
diego 
C. delgato  C. de cruz 
Punta ? 
Roixa 
RiodelasAl- ...ana 
maidas [stc] ... (?) 
Cabo Santo sea 


La Cosa 
(Humboldt) 


Ponta de 
cuba 


Sipica 
Miguel 


C. Pico 


Entubi 


P. de Maiti 


C. de Cruz 


Matata 


Conia 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


La Cosa 
(De la 
Sagra) 


Punta de 
Cuba 


Clindo 


r° de la 
bega 


psto 


O pico 


p. de S. my 


p. de maiti 


C. de Cuba 


C. de es- 
pitto 


C. de onez 


nov 


Conia 


La Cosa 
(Jomard) 


ponta de> 
Cuba 
Cliuda 


r° de la 


bega 
p. sto 
C. pico 
p. de S. 
mi° 


p. de 
main 


C. de 
Cuba 


C. de es- 


pera 


C. de au 


bueno 


solor 


fuma 


_ CANTINO 
(original) 


Rio de los 
largartos 


las cabras 
lago luncor 


costa alta 


cabo de béa 
ventura 


cansure 


cabo d. 
licotu 


costa del 


mar uciano 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 


La Cosa La Cosa 
(Photo) (Humboldt) 
four Fig, 11] 
Cuba Cuba 
:, am 
weyet?) 
r° de las La Pieta 
piedras (?) 
cuba 
ancon (?) 
serafin Serafin 
C. manguj C. Man- 
guin 
mensi (?) : 
bien basa 
cerro (?) 
C. de bien C. Bien 
espera Espera 
abange- Abange- 
lista lista 


La Cosa 
(De la 
Sagra) 


C. negro 


P. del 


Principe 


sexto 


C. serafin 


C. mang- 
ny 


junez 


bien baja 


C. de bien 


espero 


Abange- 
lista 


107 


LA Cosa 
(Jomard) 


magno 
ma ica 


del pieta 


cuba 


baxi 


serafin 


C. maug- 
ny 


fumos 


bien baso 
oerto 
bordoe 


C. de 
bien 
espera 


abarar- 
lista 


Again Harrisse points out there is not in La Cosa’s 
Cuba, any more than in the nomenclature and de- 
scription of Las Casas, Bernaldez, Ferdinand Colum- 


108 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


bus, and Christopher Columbus himself, @ single one 
of the twenty-two names which are inserted on the 
northwestern continental region of the Cantino chart. 


THE PROBLEM RECONSIDERED 


The arguments of Harrisse place the problem fairly 
before us. With his conclusions the present writer 
takes issue. The problem of the continental land will, 
therefore, be considered anew in respect to (1) the 
shape depicted; (2) the names derived from Colum- 
bus; (3) the names possibly derived from other 
sources; (4) doubtful names; and, finally (5), the 
geographical theories which led to the location of the 
region northwest of the so-called island of Isabella. 


THE SHAPE OF THE LAND 


The shape of the land seems to have been derived 
from statements concerning the coasts discovered on 
the second voyage of Columbus. In the “Infor- 
maci6n y testimonio’”’ of Fernand Perez de Luna, con- 
cerning the oath taken by the pilots and crew to 
the effect that Cuba was a continental land, is a 
passage!’ that seems to be the origin of the shape of 
the land as it appears on the Cantino map: 

17 J. B. Thacher: Christopher Columbus: His Life, His Work; His 
Remains, 3 vols., New York, 1903-04; reference in Vol. 2, p. 327 (Spanish 
text and English translation, the former from M. F. de Navarrete: 
Relaciones, cartas y otros documentos concernientes 4 los cuatro viages 


que hizo el Almirante D. Crist6bal Col6n para el descubrimiento de las 
Indias occidentales, Madrid, 1825; and idem: Colecci6n de documentos 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 109 


Don Christopher Columbus . . . required me, Fer- 
nand Perez de Luna, one of the Public Notaries of the 
City of Isabella,!* on the part of their Highnesses: that 
inasmuch as he had left the said City of Isabella with 
three caravels to come and discover the continental land 
of the Indies, although he had already discovered part of 
it on the other voyage which he had first made here the 
past year of the Lord 1493, and had not been able to 
learn the truth in regard to it: because although he 
travelled a long distance beside it, he had not found 
persons on the seacoast who were able to give a trust- 
worthy account of it, because they were all naked people 
who did not possess property of their own nor trade, nor 
go outside their houses, nor did others come to them, ac- 
cording to what he learned from them: and on this ac- 
count he did not declare affirmatively that it was the 
continental land, except that he pronounced it doubtful, 
and had named it La Juana in memory of the Prince 
Don Juan, our Lord: and now he left the said city of 
Isabella the 24th day of the month of April and came to 
seek the land of the said Juana nearest to the island of 
Isabella,!® which is shaped like a triangle extending from 
east to west, and the point is the eastern part, twenty- 
two leagues from Isabella . . . (la cual es fecha como 
un giron que va de Oriente 4 Occidente, y la punta esta 
de la parte del Oriente propinca 4 la Isabela veinte é dos 
leguas). 
concernientes 4 la persona, viages y descubrimientos del Almirante D. 
Crist6bal Col6én, Madrid, 1825, forming Vols. 1 and 2 of his ‘‘Colecci6én 
de los viages y descubrimientos que hicieron por mar los Espafioles 
desde fines del siglo XV,” 5 vols., Madrid, 1825-37; reference in Vol. 2, 
Document 76 on pp. 143-149). 

18 On the northern coast of the island of Haitii—G. E. N. 


19 The fourth island discovered by Columbus on his first voyage, one 
of the Bahamas.—G. E. N. 





CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


itu Pray 


Ny 


my 


Fig. 12—The northwestern land on the Waldseemiiller map of 1 507 
(from the facsimile in Fischer and von Wieser’s The Oldest Map With 


the Name America, Pl, 2), 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 111 

















ae 
Bia 


"<a 
aes ee 


j=t = 





Fig. 13—The northwestern continental land on the Waldseemiiller 
map of 1516 (from the facsimile in Fischer and von Wieser’s The Oldest 
Map With the Name America, Pl. 15). 


112 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


This statement must be taken in connection with 
others relating to the first voyage. Regarding the 
land discovered, Columbus said :2° 


. I thought it must be the mainland—the province 
of Cathay; and, as I found neither towns nor villages on 
the sea-coast but only a few hamlets, with the inhabitants 
of which I could not hold conversation because they all 
immediately fled, I kept on the same route, thinking that 
I could not fail to light upon some large cities and towns. 
At length, after the proceeding of many leagues, and 
finding that nothing new presented itself, and that the 
coast was leading me northwards. . 


Again, Martin Alonso Pinzén reported?! to Co- 
lumbus on October 30, 1492, that he believed ‘‘the 
land was the mainland and went far to the north and 
was very great’ (y que toda aquella tierra era tierra 
firme, pues iba tanto al Norte y era tan grande). 
Furthermore, according to Las Casas,24# Columbus 
found the latitude to be 42° N. Las Casas is suspi- 
cious of this value, and justly so, for it should be 21° 
N., and ascribes it to a slip of the pen. The discrep- 
ancy is, however, explained, as Navarrete points 
out,?!> by the fact that the quadrants of the time were 
graduated to half degrees. Nevertheless, it is prob- 
able that this erroneous latitude influenced the maker 
of the Cantino map. 


20 Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 121; Major, op. cit., pp. 2-3. 

21Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 44, (Vol. 1, p. 322); and journal 
of the first voyage, in entry for Oct. 30, 1492 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, 
p. 32; Markham, op. cit., p. 63). 

tia Las Casas, op. cit., Book 1, Chs. 44 and 45 (references in Vol. 1, 
pp. 324 and 328.) 2b Navarrete, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 44, note 5. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 113 


Now let us consider these facts. There was sup- 
posed to be a mainland called Juana by Columbus. 
This land was shaped, as far as known, like a triangle. 
The southern coast ran east and west. The eastern 
coast ran to the north. It was twenty-two leagues 
from the eastern end of the land to Isabella. Es- 
pafiola was not mentioned in the ‘‘Informacién y 
testimonio”’ in connection with the position of the 
triangle. 

Turning now to the Cantino map (Fig. 8), we find 
that these facts are obviously incorporated in it: the 
coast of the northwestern mainland is shaped like a 
triangle and the island of Isabella is placed to the 
east between the mainland and Espafiola. Cuba 
does not appear; but on the Waldseemiiller map of 
1516,” which, judging from shape and names, follows 
the same source as the Cantino map, we find on the 
triangular mainland the legend ‘“Terra de Cuba Asie 
Partis” (Fig. 13). Here, then, we have the clue that 
unravels the mystery that is a stumbling block to 
Harrisse—Columbus and his companions were the 
unconscious source of the error, though they them- 
selves could not imaginably have represented the 
geography of the New World as did Cantino. In 
short, the error is due to the interpretation put upon 
the descriptions of Columbus by cartographers who 
had not been on the ground and who were endeavor- 
ing to harmonize conflicting data as best they might. 


22 Hischer and von Wieser, op. cit. 


114 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


If, now, we look further, we find on the Canerio 
chart,” possibly of a little later date than the 
Cantino, that, on the triangular mainland west of 
what would correspond to the farthest navigation on 
the southern coast of Cuba made by Columbus on 
his second voyage, the land turns southward and a 
delta with three openings appears there as a con- 
spicuous feature of the coast (Fig. 9). Correspond- 
ing with this feature, Peter Martyr states,™4 in his 
account of the fourth voyage of Columbus, “‘that 
within a distance of eight leagues he discovered three 
rivers of clear water, upon whose banks grew canes 
as thick round as a man’s leg.”’ —The Canerio delta, 
according to Varnhagen,” is that of the Mississippi; 
but, if intended for the Mississippi, it strangely ap- 
pears on the western instead of the northern coast of 
the gulf. If, however, this continental land repre- 
sents Cuba, which Columbus believed to be the 
mainland of Asia (as on the configuration of the 
Behaim globe”* and the Martellus map?’), then all is 
clear and simple. As we have seen in the preceding 
study (p. 70 and Pl. II), the northeastern coast of 
Cuba was the eastern coast of Cathay; the southern 

23 See, above, footnote 1. For other reproductions see those mentioned 
below in footnote 31, second paragraph. The date of this map is uncertain. 
Stevenson dates it about 1502; the writer believes it is not earlier than 1504. 


2H, A. MacNutt, transl. and edit.: De Orbe Novo: The Eight Decades 
of Peter Martyr D’Anghera, 2 vols., New York, 1912; reference in Vol. I, 
D.ss10, 

2 Varnhagen, Vespuce, p. 30. 

2 EK. G. Ravenstein: Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe, London, 
1908, with facsimile of gores of globe. 

27 Reproduced in Nordenskidld, Periplus, p. 123. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO, MAP 115 


coast was the southern coast of Mangi; and westward 
the coast should, theoretically, turn south; the land 
to the west was Ciamba. The southward turn of the 
Cuban coast was taken in the summer of 1494 as a 
proof that Cuba was part of the Asiatic mainland.°? 
The fourth voyage of Columbus was conducted on 
the same theory, 


THE PLACE NAMES CONSIDERED 


In turning to consider the names on the continental 
land, we are met with a most curious error on the 
part of Harrisse. When he compares the names on 
the Cantino chart with the nomenclature of Colum- 
bus (pp. 103-104) he starts, in the case of the latter, 
with the name at the northern end of the eastern 
coast and follows the names in order south, and then 
west along the southern coast;?? when, however, he 
takes up the Cantino chart, he starts with the name 
at the western end of the southern coast and goes 
east and then north—in the reverse order to what he 
did in the first instance. As a result he finds there 


28 Letter of Columbus on the third voyage (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, 
pp. 26—40, reference on p. 27; translation in Major, op. cit., pp. 108-151, 
reference on p. 110); testimony of Fernand Perez de Luna (Navarrete, 
op. cit., Vol. 2, Document 76 on pp. 143-149, reference on p. 144; trans- 
lation in Thacher, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp. 327-333, reference on p. 329); 
Fiske, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp. 476-477; Stevens, Historical and Geographical 
Notes, p. 12. 

29 Strictly, Harrisse lists these names in the chronological order of 
discovery; except for the first four names (exclusive of Pefia de los 
Enamorados; see, above, footnote 9), given on the first voyage, this 
coincides with the topographical order here indicated. 


116 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


is not a single 
name to corre- 
spond in the two 
lists. In setting 
forth the names 
on the La Cosa 
map (p. 106), he 
starts with the 
Punta de Cuba 
and goes north, 
after which he re- 
turns to the same 
point and goes 
west. 

If, now, we re- 
verse one of these 
lists, and so take 
the names in the 
same order in each 
case and compare 
the Cantino and 
La Cosa names 
as well as the 
names and de- 
scriptions of the 

Fig. 14—The north- 
western continental land 
onthe Cantino map (from 
thehand-copiedreproduc- 
tion accompanying Har- 
risse’s Les Corte-Real). 


For general relation, 
see Fig, 8. 





“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 117 





Fig. 15—The northwestern continental land on the Canerio map 
(enlarged from the photographic facsimile in Harrisse’s Discovery of 
North America, Pl. 14). For general relation, see Fig. 9. 


118 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


coast given by Columbus, as reported by himself and 
his contemporary historians,*° a sufficient number of 
the names can be identified to establish a vital con- 
nection between the Cantino mainland and the explo- 
rations of Columbus on the first and second voyages. 
The method to be followed will be to take the names 
on the Cantino map*! (Fig. 14) and search for their 
equivalents. The starting point will be the first name 
at the north on the eastern coast and thence around 
to the last name on the southern coast at the west. 


NAMES DERIVED FROM THE VOYAGES OF 
COLUMBUS 


(A) EASTERN COAST 


Costa del mar vgiano: On the northern side of the 
island of Cuba La Cosa names the water ‘Mar 
Oceanuz.’”’ It is not a great change to name the 
coast facing this sea the Costa del Mar Vciano. 


30 See, above, footnotes 5-8. 

31:On Stevenson’s photograph of the Cantino map (see footnote 1, 
above) the names are hard to read because, on the photograph, the color- 
ing of the land often obscures the lettering. For this reason the names as 
they appear on the hand-traced facsimile in Harrisse’s ‘‘Les Corte-Real’’ 
(see footnote 1), reproduced in our Fig. 14, are used in the present analysis. 

On the other hand, on Stevenson’s excellent heliotype facsimile of the 
Canerio map on the scale of the original the names are easily legible, and 
this reproduction has, therefore, been used, in preference to the facsimile 
of a part by Harrisse (Discovery of North America, Pl. 14; however, 
used, for our Fig. 15 for technical reasons) and to the much-reduced 
facsimile of the whole by Gabriel Marcel (Reproductions de cartes et 
de globes relatifs 4 la découverte de l’Amérique du XVI° au XVIII° 
siécle, text and atlas, Paris, 1893; reference in atlas, Pls. 2 and 3). Inter- 
pretations (not facsimiles) of the names are available on the reproductions 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 119 


Canfure: Possibly ‘‘city of the Can,” or ‘‘Can fu.” 
This name occurs in the region where Columbus sent 
two of his men with a letter to endeavor to find the 
Great Khan (Can) on the northern coast of Cuba.” 
The Canerio map has the name ‘‘Caninor’’ (Fig. 15); 
Waldseemiiller (1507), ‘‘Camnor’”’ (Fig. 12). These 
names seem to relate to the same incident as above 
and occur on the same part of the coast. 

Costa alia: The “high coast,’’ a name most cer- 
tainly not applicable to any point on the coast of 
Florida, the Carolinas, Virginia, or the Jersey coast. 
If, however, we turn to the account by Las Casas of 
the first voyage of Columbus, we find under October 
28 the observation :** “‘He says the island is full of 
very beautiful but not very high mountains and all 
the rest of the land seemed to him like the island of 


by Gallois (Une nouvelle carte marine du XVI® siécle: Le portulan de 
Nicolas de Canerio, Bull. Soc. de Géogr. de Lyon, Vol. 9, 1890, pp. 97— 
190, 2 plates, and Konrad Kretschmer: Die Entdeckung Amerikas in ihrer 
Bedeutung fiir die Geschichte des Weltbildes, 2 vols. (text and atlas), 
Berlin, 1892; reference in atlas, Pl. 8 (our Fig. 9). 

Although the facsimile of the La Cosa map by Canovas Vallejo and 
Traynor (see footnote 15) is the official reproduction, the color lithog- 
raphy in which it is printed is not refined enough to bring out all names 
clearly. Harrisse’s reproduction of the photographic enlargement of 
Cuba on this map (Discovery of North America, Pl. 7; our Fig. 11), 
which is satisfactory, has therefore here been used. 

32 Letter on the first voyage (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 124; trans- 
lation in Major, op. cit., p. 3); Journal (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. I, pp. 34- 
36; translation in Markham, op. cit., pp. 66-69). 

33 Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 44 (Vol. 1, p. 320). The correspond- 
ing passage in the Journal reads (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 31; transl. 
in Markham, op. cit., p. 60): la isla dize qu’es llena de montafias muy 
hermosas, aunque no son muy grandes en longura, salvo aitas, y toda la 
otra tierra es alta de la manera de Cecilia. 


120 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Sicily, high’’ (Decia ser la isla lena de montafias muy 
hermosas, aunque no muy altas, y toda la otra 
tierra le parecia como la isla de Cecilia, alta). 

lago luncor: Las Casas, under date of November 3, 
says* that the ‘Admiral entered a boat to see that 
river which made with its mouth a great lake and 
thus constituted a most excellent deep and rock-free 
port’”’ (Sabado, 3 dias de Noviembre, por la mafiana, 
entr6é el Almirante en la barca por ver aqual rio, el 
cual hace a4 la boca un gran lago, y deste se con- 
stituye un singularisimo puerto muy hondo y 
limpio de piedras). This description is applied to 
that part of Cuba which was seen six days after the 
Costa alta. The meaning of the word “‘luncor”’ is 
not known; possibly it was meant for “‘lago luengo,’’®® 
or long lake. The lago is quite possibly the one re- 
ferred to above. 

las cabras: This name, “the goats,” is almost 
certainly a corruption. Goats are not native to the 
American continent. It is reasonably certain that 
none of the early discoverers of the eastern part of 
America saw any goats. On the other hand, if we 
turn to the account of the first voyage, we find the 
following statement under the date of November 29 :3¢ 
‘‘The sailors also found, in one house, the head of a 
man in a basket, covered with another basket, and 


34 Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 45 (Vol. 1, p. 328). 

35 Fiske, op. cit., Vol. 2, p. 78. 

36 Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 52 (transl. in Markham, op. cit., p. 92, 
under entry incorrectly dated Nov. 27); Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, 
Ch. 48 (Vol. 1, p. 354). 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 121 


fastened to a post of the house”’ (Hallaron también 
los marineros en casa una cabeca de hombre dentro 
en un cestillo, cubierto con otro cestillo, y colgado de 
un poste de la casa). This episode seems to be 
the basis of the name ‘‘las cabras.’’ Some sailor in 
attempting to make a map of the coast of Cuba may 
have written “cabzas”’ for “‘cabezas,’’ omitting the e; 
the z was then taken by the Cantino chart-maker 
for an 7, in order to make sense, hence ‘‘las cabras.”’ 

Rio de los largartos: his name seems to be an in- 
terpolation either from the first voyage of Columbus, 
at the time he was visiting the island he named 
Isabella, or from the second voyage while he was 
coasting the southern shore of Cuba. Apparently, 
the Spaniards saw their first iguana on the island of 
Isabella, and it was described by Columbus.*” The 
name “Rio de los largartos’’ may have been trans- 
ferred to the island of Cuba and then carried over, 
along with the other names, from the real Cuba to 
the mainland in the Cantino map. There is, how- 
ever, another possibility. Speaking of the second 
voyage, both Andrés Bernaldez and Peter Martyr** 
refer to the Spaniards landing on the southern coast 


37 Journal under date of Oct. 21, 1492 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 27; 
transl. in Markham, op. cit., p. 54). See also Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, 
Ch. 43 (Vol. 1, pp. 313-314 and 316) and Paesi novamente retrovati & 
Novo Mondo da Alberico Vesputio Florentino intitulato [1508], repro- 
duced in facsimile from the McCormick-Hoe copy in the Princeton 
University Library (Vespucci Reprints, Texts and Studies, VI), Prince- 
ton, N: J., 1916, p. 105. 

88 Bernaldez, op. cit., Seville edition, Vol. 2, pp. 46-47; MacNutt, 
op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 94-95. See also Paesi novamente retrovati, p. 116. 


122 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


of Cuba and finding the Indians preparing a meal of 
fish and serpents, which latter Bernaldez describes in 
such a way as to make certain that they were iguanas. 
Peter Martyr describes the serpents as eight feet 
long and in no wise different from the crocodiles of 
the Nile except in point of size. Lagarto (from the 
Latin lacertus) is the Spanish form of the word lizard. 
The iguana belongs to the lizard family. The name 
“Rio de los largartos,”’ if due to the above incident 
on the second voyage, may have been transferred to 
the northern coast by being written over the land in- 
stead. of the sea, on some local chart of one of the 
sailors. An instance of how such placing might 
transfer a name from one coast to the other may be 
seen in the La Cosa map: of the names relating to 
Cuba it is impossible to determine to which coast 
many of them belong (see Fig. 11). 

Cabo Santo: Columbus gave the name “Puerto 
Sancto”’ to a harbor near the eastern end of Cuba.%® 
If this name had been written by some unknown 
cartographer “P. Santo,” it would not be an un- 
likely change for the Cantino draftsman to interpret 
“P. Santo” as “Punta Santo” or” Cabo Sanu 

Rio de las almadias: This is another descriptive 
term. Columbus did not give the name to any place 
on the coast according to any list we have; but, on 


39 Journal under date of Dec. 1, 1492 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 52; 
Markham, op. cit., p. 93); Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 49 (Vol. 1, 
Dp. 355). 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 123 


December 3, he saw five large almadtas, or canoes.*° 
It may well be that this incident furnished the basis 
of the name given to the river. 

puta (Punta) Roixa: ‘“The reddish headland.’’ None 
of the accounts of the voyage of Columbus gives this 
name to any portion of the coast. Under date of 
November 25, however, the Journal says‘! that 
Columbus found rocks on the shore which seemed to 
contain iron and silver. Southern Cuba does con- 
tain large deposits of iron. Such an incident would 
furnish a sufficient basis to some sailor, in recounting 
his experiences on the voyage, to give the name 
“Punta Roixa’’ to the corresponding section of the 
coast. 

Rio de do (don) diego: On the La Cosa map the 
third name west of the eastern end of Cuba is ‘“‘R® 
de la bega”’ (Fig. 11). The Cantino map has almost 
certainly corrupted this name. The correspondence 
seems all the plainer when we point out that in both 
cases the name is the third from the eastern end of 
Cuba. 

C. do fim do abrill: “‘Cape of the end of April.”’ 
On the first voyage Columbus gave the name ‘‘Cabo 
Alpha et Omega”’ to the point which he regarded as 
the end of the mainland eastward and the first of 
the mainland coming west from Cape St. Vincent in 


40 Journal under that date (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 53; incomplete 
translation in Markham, op. cit., p. 94); Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, 
Chyra9 (Vol. 3, D. 355). 

41 Journal (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 47; Markham, op. cit., p. 85); 
Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 47 (Vol. 1, p. 346). 


124 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Portugal.” La Cosa called it Punta de Cuba (Fig. 11). 
Las Casas tells us that Columbus regarded this cape 
as the Cape of the land of the Great Khan, i. e. the 
mainland of Asia. On the second voyage Columbus 
left the city of Isabella on the northern coast of 
Espanola (Haiti) on April 24, 1494, and arrived at 
the port of San Nicolas at the western extremity of 
the island on April 29; hence the crossing of the 
strait between Espafiola and Cuba came on April 
30. The name ‘‘Cabo do fim do Abrill”’ seems to have 
been derived from this fact. 


The name must have been communicated to the 
map-maker by some one not well informed as to the 
first voyage; but this presents no difficulty, since it 
is apparent from the study of the names so far con- 
sidered that the maker of the Cantino map did not 
have at hand the maps of Columbus and La Cosa 
nor any of the accounts used by scholars in criticiz- 
ing the so-called ‘Florida’ of the Cantino map. 
Harrisse and others, in considering only the written 
accounts and maps and neglecting the possibility of 


42Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 50 (Vol. 1, p. 360); Ferdinand 
Columbus, op. cit., Ch. 30, i. e. Ch. 31 (Italian edition, London, 1867, p 
93; English translation in Churchill’s Voyages, p. 535); Peter Martyr: 
De Orbe Novo, First Decade, Book III (translation by MacNutt, op. 
cit., p. 92); Andrés Bernaldez, op. cit., Seville edition, Vol. 2, p. 41 (also 
in Reet Part. 1; Vol. t£o,*241), 

Ferdinand Columbus says the cape was named Cape Alpha mE gives 
no explanation of the meaning of the name. Peter Martyr and Andrés 
Bernaldez, while explaining the meaning, attribute the name to the 
second voyage. 

43 Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 94 (Vol. 2, p. 51). 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 125 


oral testimony concerning the discoveries, have failed 
to take into consideration what was probably the 
most usual means of communicating the news of the 
period among the seaport towns of Spain and Portu- 
gal. All the names dealt with so far are descriptive 
terms (derived from events that occurred during the 
progress of the voyage along the coast of Cuba or 
from the prominent features of the coast) such as 
would naturally be communicated orally by a sailor 
who had taken part in the voyage. Such a person, 
though himself incapable of making a map of the new 
discoveries, might be presumed to have described 
from memory what he had seen. It may well be 
imagined that, from these accounts, some Portuguese 
draftsman made rude local charts of the real Cuba. 
Supposing this chart-maker to have been a man in. 
clined to spell according to sound and capable of 
omitting a letter occasionally, we may readily visu- 
alize the material the Cantino chart-maker used in 
depicting the northwestern mainland. 

These names, picked from descriptions of some 
two hundred miles of coast (a description covering 
forty pages in Las Casas’ ‘“‘Historia de las Indias’’), 
would not necessarily mean much were it not that 
the descriptive terms also correspond in order with 
the names on the Cantino map. Of the eleven names 
thought to be derived from the first voyage of Co- 
lumbus, nine are in the same order in the accounts of 
Las Casas and others as they are found on the 
Cantino map. Three, ‘“‘Canfure,’’ “‘Costa alta,” and 


126 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


‘ago luncor,” belong to the Rio de Mares region. 
Four others, ‘‘las cabras,”’ ‘“Cabo Santo,” “‘Rio de las 
almadias,’’ and ‘‘Rio de d6 diego,’ belong to the 
Puerto Santo region. ‘‘C. do fim do abrill’’ needs 
no comment on its position. Only two are out of 
order: ‘‘Rio do los largartos’’ and “‘piita Roixa’’; the 
first is an interpolation, the second should be placed 
between “las cabras’’ and ‘‘Cabo Santo.”’ The co- 
incidence of the meaning and the position of the 
nine is quite conclusive as to the Columbian source 
of the names. 

It will be noticed that no comment has been made 
in regard to ‘‘Cabo d. licotir,’’ ‘““Cabo de boa ven- 
tura,’”’ ‘“‘C. delgato,’”’ and “‘cornejo.’’ These names, 
in part at least, seem to belong to another source 
than Columbus and their origin will be discussed 
later. 

(B) SOUTHERN COAST 


Proceeding in order, we will now consider the 
southern coast of the Cantino land (Fig. 14). The 
names here are practically all unidentifiable. They 
are from east to west: “‘el golfo bavo,” “C. lurcar,” 
‘““C. do mortinbo,” “G. do lurcor,”” @ aneare se 
do corno,”’ and ‘‘Rio de las palmas.’”’ On the Canerio 
map, beyond Rio de las Palmas, there appears one 
more name than on the Cantino, “‘lago del lodro”’ 
(Fig. 15). This name is near the edge of the Canerio 
map; it may also originally have been on the Cantino 
map, and in that case was cut away when the border 
was trimmed off. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 127 


el golfo bavo: This is the first name west of C. 
do fim do abrill. The first place mentioned by Las 
Casas and Bernaldez, after Columbus started to 
coast the island of Cuba on the south on his second 
voyage, is described by Las Casas“ as ‘‘una gran ba- 
hia y puerto grande’ named, by Columbus, Puerto 
Grande. In favor of an identification of ‘‘el golfo 
bavo” with the Puerto Grande there is the fact that 
in each case the name is the first mentioned west of 
C. do fim do abrill. 

Rio de las palmas: This is another descriptive 
name such as might have been given almost any- 
where on the coast of Cuba. It may be a name trans- 
posed from the northern coast, where Columbus on 
the first voyage gave the name ‘‘Cabo de Palmas” 
to a headland near the point whence he turned back 
toward Espafiola.* | 

lago del lodro: On the Canerio map only; it seems 
to belong to the fourth voyage. It is possibly de- 
rived from “lugar del oro” or ‘‘loco del oro.” Ver- 
agua was known, from the voyage of 1502, as a land 
where an abundance of gold was found ;** in the ‘“‘In- 
formatione di Bartolomeo Colombo’’!’ there is men- 


44 Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, Ch. 94 (Vol. 2, p. 51). 

45 Journal under date of Oct. 30, 1492 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 1, p. 32; 
transl. in Markham, op. cit., p. 63). See also Las Casas, op. cit., Book I, 
Ch. Aa (Vol. 1, p. 322). 

46 Letter of Columbus of July 7, 1503 (Raccolta, Part I, Vol. 2, p. 198, 
transl. in R. H. Major, op. cii., p. 197). 

47(Henry Harrisse:) Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima: A De- 
scription of Works Relating to America Published Between the Years 
1492 and 1551, New York, 1866. pp. 471-474. Also in F. R. von Wieser: 


128 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


tion several times of the abundance of gold. Veragua, 
as Lochac, was associated in the mind of Columbus 
with the Golden Chersonese (see the third study, 
DP 74e7 5): 

On the Canerio map a grove of trees is shown in 
the corner of the gulf, with another slightly farther 
north (Fig. 15). On the Ruysch map of 1508,48 in 
the same corner of Asia, there are two groves, one 
“Silva Ebani’’ and the other “Silva Aloe.”’ There 
are other silvae in four places farther south on the 
same map. 

This completes the list of names on the Cantino 
and Canerio maps which appear to have had their 
origin in the voyages of Columbus. 


NAMES FROM OTHER SOURCES 


Some of the names that remain may come from 
other sources. When it is recalled that Columbus 
regarded Cuba as the mainland of Asia, it may be 
worth while to examine the names given to areas 
which were similarly regarded as Asiatic by one or 
another map-maker or explorer. There were other 
such areas in 1500—first, the land discovered by 
John Cabot and, second, that discovered by the 
Corte-Reals in 1500.49 In order to avoid the ques- 


Footnole 47, continued 
Die Karte des Bartolomeo Colombo iiber die vierte Reise des Admirals, 
text and facsimile of three maps, reprint from Mitt. des Inst. fiir Oster= 
reichische Geschichtsforschung, Innsbruck, 1893. 

48 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 32. 

49 See La Cosa for the Cabot land (Fig. 10; enlarged on Fig. 16), 
Cantino for the Corte-Real land (Fig. 8). 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 129 


tion of their identity these two lands may be re- 
garded as distinct; in any case they are represented 
differently on the charts. 

The land discovered by the Cabots*® is not iden- 
tifiable, as, apparently, its latitude cannot be de- 
termined. Its supposed distance from England 
was early put in question. The Soncino letter of 
August 24, 1497,°! gives it as 400 leagues. This dis- 
tance was questioned by Ruy Gonzalez de Puebla in 
his letter to the Catholic sovereigns dated July 25 (?), 
1498. Pedro de Ayala, in his despatch of July 25, 
1498, says he does not believe that the distance is 
400 leagues but that the land was part of what had 
been discovered for the Spanish sovereigns. The 
Pasqualigo letter of August 23, 1497, reported 
Cabot’s statement that the distance to the new land 
was 700 leagues and that it was the mainland of the 
country of the Great Khan. The second Soncino 
letter, of December 18, 1497, represents John Cabot 
as hoping, after occupying the fish country, to “keep 
on still further towards the East, where he will be 
opposite to an island called Cipango.”’ Juan de la Cosa 
delineated the English discoveries along a coast ex- 
tending east and west (Fig. 10; enlarged on Fig. 16), 

the most westerly name being apparently considerably 

50 Henry Harrisse: John Cabot, the Discoverer of North America, 
and Sebastian, His Son, London, 1896, pp. 42-84, 126-141, and 385-469; 
idem: Discovery of North America, pp. 1-50; Charles Deane: The 


Voyages of the Cabots, in Winsor: Narrative and Critical History, Vol. 3, 


pp. 58. 
51 For this and the following documents see Markham, op. cit., pp. 202, 
207, 208-209, 201-202, 203-206. 


130 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


to the east 
of the longi- 
tude of Es- 
panola. 

entire 
would have 
been possi- 
ble for Cabot 
to continue 
his voyage 
westwards 
eta Oral ob 
East,” until 
he was oppo- 
Bites tan 
island of Ci- 
pangu, or the 
Espanola of 
Columbus. 
No names on 
this Cabot 
land can be 
identified 
with any of 
those on the 
(ratiiiteL tie 
map. 

Fig. 16—The 
Jand_ discovered 
by Cabot, from 
the La Cosa map 
(enlarged from 


the photographic 
facsimile in Harrisse’s Discovery of North America, PI. 2). 





“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 131 


Turning now to the second possibility, four voy- 
ages were made by the Portuguese to the northwest 
in 1500 and following years.®? Of these, three were 
made early enough for their results to be incorporated 
in the Cantino map. Gaspar Corte-Real made the 
first voyage in 1500 and returned safely. The next 
year he sailed again, but, while his companion ship 
reached home, he himself never returned. In 1502 
Miguel Corte-Real went to search for his brother 
with three ships. Arrived on the coast, the ships 
separated to carry on the search, with the under- 
standing that they would meet again on August 20. 
Two of the ships kept this rendezvous, but Miguel 
Corte-Real was never seen again. The land where 
the Corte-Reals were lost was named ‘Terra de 
Corte-Real.”’ Alberto Cantino, in his letter®? to the 
Duke of Ferrara, October 17, 1501, reported the dis- 
tance to the land of Corte-Real as 2800 miles. 
Pasqualigo, on October 18, 1501, reported the dis- 
tance as 1800 miles to north and west. The latter 
also reported that the Portuguese believed this land 
was joined to the Andilie (the Antilles), discovered 
by the Spaniards, and to the land of Papaga (Brazil), 
discovered by Cabral, and that it was the mainland. 

On the coast of a peninsula designated ‘A ponta 
d’ [Asia],’’** which resembles, and may represent, 

52 Harrisse, Les Corte-Real; idem: Découverte . . . de Terre-Netive, 
PP. 34-50; idem: Discovery of North America, pp. 59-76. 

583 For this and the following document see Harrisse, Les Corte-Real, 
pp. 204-211; also Markham, op. cit., pp. 232-236. 

54 The bracketed word is missing because it was near the border of 


the map, which was trimmed off. There is no doubt as to the meaning 
Asia, however, because of the inscription at the side of the peninsula. 


132 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Greenland (Fig. 8), the Cantino map contains a 
legend as follows: 


Esta terra he descober[ta] per mandado do muy es- 
celentissimo p[rilncepe dom Manuel Rey de portugall 
aquall se cree ser esta a ponta dasia. E os que a des- 
cobriram nam chegarOo a terra mais vironla z nam viram 
senam serras muyto espessas polla quall segum a opinyom 
dos cosmofircos se cree ser a ponta dasia. (This land 
was discovered by order of the very excellent Prince Dom 
Manoel, King of Portugal, which is believed to be the 
extremity of Asia. Those who discovered it did not go 
ashore but saw the land and saw nothing but very ser- 
rated mountains; it is for this reason, according to the 
opinion of cosmographers, that it is believed to be the 
extremity of Asia.) 


The facts rehearsed were a puzzle to cartographers; 
for they were called upon to delineate a land at once 
400 leagues from England, 700 leagues from Bristol, 
and 1800 or 2800 miles from Lisbon; a land that was 
the mainland of Asia and that could be coasted west- 
ward ‘‘to the East’”’ until one was opposite the island 
of Cipangu; and a land where the Portuguese maps 
indicated the discoveries of the Corte-Reals on a 
coast extending north and south so as to join the 
Andilie land and the land of Papaga. 

The cartographer who made the Cantino map put 
this material together by stripping all the names from 
the coast of the Terra de Corte-Real, as he had done 


55 Stevenson, Maps Illustrating Early Discovery, Portfolio 1. Legend 
deciphered in Harrisse, Discovery of North America, p. 67. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 133 


with the names on the real Cuba, and transferring 
them, so far as he used them at all, to the supposed 
mainland of Asia. The land was given the triangular 
shape indicated in the “Informacién y testiimonio”’ 
of Ferdinand Perez de Luna—an eastern coast running 
many degrees to the north, and a southern coast 
running, so far as the Cantino map is concerned, to 
the margin on the west. (This was in conformity 
with the Behaim-Martellus idea of eastern Asia.) 
Then, as though not quite certain, he put in the pine- 
covered land of Terra Corte-Real far to the east on 
the Portuguese side of the Demarcation Line and 
somewhat less than half the distance across the ocean 
from Ireland. 

On the eastern and southern coasts of the supposed 
Asiatic mainland on the Cantino map two names, at 
least, are found which belong to the Corte-Real 
voyages. The second,name from the north is Cabo 
d. licdtur (Fig. 14). Canerio gives the name as ‘‘Cabo 
dellicontir’ (Fig. 15). Harrisse suggests®® that this 
name is really ‘‘Cabo del encontro,” or ‘‘the cape of 
the meeting,’ that is of the meeting appointed by 
Miguel Corte-Real for August 20, 1502. The other 
name, Cabo de boa ventura, is the fourth from the 
north on the Cantino map. This name is Portuguese 
in form and not Spanish as are the others. A ‘‘C[abo] 
de boa ventura,’ as well as an ‘“‘Y|sla] de boa ven- 


56 Harrisse, Découverte . . . de Terre-Neuve, p. 359; zdem, Les 
Corte-Real, p. 90. 


134 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


tura,’’ are found on the Pedro Reinel chart, 1505,5” of 
the Portuguese possessions. The name “bona ven- 
tura” is also found on the Oliveriana chart.®® After 
1520 the name frequently appears on the coast of 
what finally differentiates itself as Newfoundland. 
Still another name that may belong to the Corte- 
Real voyages is C. delgato, or ““Cape of the cat.” 
Alberto Cantino, in his letter already cited, refers to 
“... animals, in which the country abounds, such as 
very large stags with long-haired fur . . .; also wolves, 
foxes, tigers, and sables’’ (animali, deli quali el paese 
abonda, cioé cervi grandissimi vestiti di longissimo 
pelo... ; et cusi lupi, volpe, tigri et zebellini). Har- 
risse thinks the tiger was the loup-cervier, or lynx.®® 
In 1505, £5 was paid “‘to Portyngales that brought 
popyngais and catts of the mountaigne with other 
stuf to the Kinge’s grace’; or, as elsewhere stated, 
“wild catts and popyngays of the Newfound 
Island.’’®° Harrisse expresses doubt about this 
matter because neither parrots nor catamounts are 
found in Newfoundland. But popinjays are wood- 


57 Friedrich Kunstmann: Ueber einige der altesten Karten Amerikas, 
pp. 125-151 in his ‘‘ Die Entdeckung Amerikas, nach den altesten Quellen 
geschichtlich dargestellt,’’ with an atlas: Atlas zur Entdeckungsge- 
schichte Amerikas, aus Handschriften der K. Hof- und Staats-Bibliothek, 
der K. Universitat und des Hauptconservatoriums der K. B. Armee 
herausgegeben von Friedrich Kunstmann, Karl von Spruner, Georg M. 
Thomas, Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Munich, 1859; reference 
on Pl. 1 of atlas. 

58 Raccolta, Part IV, Vol. 2, Pl. 2. Also reproduced in Harrisse, 
Découverte . . . de Terre-Neuve, Pl. 4. 

59 Harrisse, Découverte . . . de Terre-Neuve, p. 45. 

60 Markham, op. cit., p. xxii, note 3; Harrisse, Discovery of North 
America, p. 47. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 135 


peckers as well as parrots.*' In general, any gar- 
rulous bird might be called a popinjay. The lynx is 
often called a catamount, or gato montés, by the 
Mexicans. The Cabot map of 1544 indicates on 
the mainland of North America three large animals; 
one of these in the east-central region is spotted like 
a tiger. The wildcat species is found all over North 
America. There is a species, known as the northern 
lynx (Felis canadensis), whose habitat is the northern 
regions, which is thought to be the loup-cervier of the 
early voyagers; this particular species is not found 
south of Pennsylvania. As, however, it is of a uni- 
form gray color it does not seem to be the same as that 
depicted on the Cabot map and certainly could not 
be called a tiger. Another species, called the bay 
lynx, or American wildcat (Felis rufa), the gato 
montés of the Mexicans, is found quite generally over 
North America as far south as Florida and Mexico. 
It is spotted in such a way that it might be called a 
tiger and is of such size as to attract immediate at- 
tention, being about thirty inches from the tip of the 
nose to the root of the tail. Nothing definite can be 
asserted about the name ‘“‘C. delgato” on the basis 
of the habitat of the various members of the Felidae. 
But the fact that the Portuguese mention tigers in 
the north, that the animal is pictured on the Cabot 
map, and that there is no mention of Felidae on the 


61 See “‘popinjay’”’ in Webster’s Dictionary; also various spellings and 
meanings in the Century Dictionary. 

62 Jomard, op. cit., Pl. XX, 1-4; Kretschmer, op. cit., atlas, Pl. 16. 
(For further details see third study, p. 84, footnote 52.) 


136 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


island of Cuba by the early navigators, together with 
the characteristics of the various wildcats living in 
the Arctic, temperate, and mountain regions, would 
all tend to show that the name ‘‘C. delgato”’ belongs 
to the Portuguese discoveries in the north. 

Only one other name on the southern coast of the 
Cantino map seems to have any relation that can 
now be determined to the Portuguese explorations 
to the north. The C. do mortinbo may be the same 
as the ‘‘Cavo del Marco; on the southern coast of 
the Oliveriana map,® and the “C. S. Marci” of 
Johan Ruysch (1508), in the same general position 
on his Cuba. In any case, its origin is not clear. 


DouBTFUL NAMES, SOME PossIBLy DERIVED FROM 
THE VESPUCIUS VOYAGE OF 1497 


Of the names on the Cantino map there remain 
unidentified and mostly unexplainable in meaning 
the following: ‘‘cornejo,”’ “‘C. lurcar,” “‘G. do lurcor,” 
“C. arlear,” and “Rio do cori 

Some of these names may possibly be derived from 
the much-disputed Vespucius voyage of 1497, to 
which reference has already been made (pp. 77-79). 
Varnhagen and Fiske®* think he made the voyage in 
1497 around the coast of Honduras, Yucatan, the 
Gulf of Mexico, and Florida to some point on the 
eastern coast of the present United States. Varn- 


63 See above, footnote 58. 

64 Nordenskidld, Facsimile-Atlas, Pl. 32. 

65 See references, note 2 above, and, in addition, Fiske, op. cit., Vol. 2, 
pp. 52-60. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 137 


hagen thinks the names on the Cantino continental 
coast are derived from Vespucius. But, if these 
names were derived in large part from Columbus and 
Corte-Real, then the coast was not Florida but Cuba 
and some part of the northeastern coast of North 
America. It follows that if Vespucius in 1497 visited 
the regions mentioned, he sailed along the southern 
coast of Cuba and not the Gulf coast of the United 
States. The name ‘Parias’’ west of the Gulf on 
the Waldseemiiller map of 1507 seems to be derived 
from Vespucius.®© Then in the “Navigatio Prima’’s’ 
Vespucius says “the country was in the torrid zone 
under the parallel which is called the Tropic of 
Cancer, where the Pole had an elevation of 23 de- 
grees.’ This would describe the southern coast of 
Cuba fairly accurately as shown on the Wald- 
seemtiller map of 1507, where the tropic crosses the 
island of Isabella. Furthermore, the Cantino map 
has two names, C. lurcar and G. do lurcor (Fig. 14) 
which Canerio changes to ‘“‘Cauo luicar’’ and ‘‘Gorffo 
do lineor” (Fig. 15). Fhese names may well be “‘C. 
linea” and ‘‘G. do linea’’—“‘the line’’ being the tropic. 
If this be the case, the cartographer of the Cantino 
map preserved nothing of the voyage of Vespucius ex- 
cept a couple of mutilated names. Even his island of 

66 Shea, in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, Vol. 2, p. 231. 

67C. G. Herbermann, edit.: The Cosmographiae Introductio of 
Martin Waldseemiiller in Facsimile, Followed by the Four Voyages of 
Amerigo Vespucci With Their Translation into English. With an Intro- 
duction by Prof. Joseph Fischer, S. J., and Prof. Franz von Wieser, 


United States Catholic Hist. Soc. Monogr. 4, New York, 1907, p. lxvii, 
translation on p. 122. 


138 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Isabella is well north of the tropic; but then it has 
been shown above that he was trying as best he 
might to interpret conflicting information. The 
northward shifting of the Cuban coast was evidently 
a compromise. The Cabot east-and-west coast was 
interpreted to be the same mainland as the Cuban 
coast of the second voyage of Columbus: the one far 
to the north, the other far to the south, but the 
Columbus coast more in accord with the theoretical 
southern coast of Mangi, as shown on the Behaim 
globe®® and the Henricus Martellus Germanus*®® map. 

One of the main difficulties in accepting the first 
voyage of Vespucius has been the supposed dis- 
covery by him of the mainland before Columbus. 
That difficulty, however, disappears if his mainland 
was merely the supposed mainland—the coast of 
Cuba—and the voyage then becomes little more than 
a repetition of the first and second voyages of Colum- 
bus. In this event, the northwestern navigation of 
Vespucius was on the northern coast of Cuba, and 
the Indian raid at the close° was somewhere in the 
Bahama group of islands. 


GEOGRAPHICAL THEORIES DETERMINING THE 
POSITION OF THE CONTINENTAL LAND 


It remains to discuss the reason for the great in- 
terval on the Cantino map between Espafiola and the 
C. do fim.do abrill, which was filled by the insertion 
of the island of Isabella. 


68 Ravenstein, op. cit., facsimile of gores of globe. 
6® Nordenskidld, Periplus, p. 123. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 139 


A brief summary is all that need here be given, 
inasmuch as the relevant geographical conceptions 
have been discussed in detail in the previous studies. 
Ptolemy made the known world to extend over ap- 
proximately 180° from west to east. Marinus of 
Tyre made this area extend over 225°. Columbus 
believed, with Marinus of Tyre, that the land from 
Cape St. Vincent in Portugal to Cattigara at the 
eastern limit of the known world covered 225° of 
longitude. The work of the medieval geographers 
had added to the world as known to the ancients 
approximately 60°; hence 285° had been accounted 
for before the voyage of 1492. According to the 
reckoning of Columbus, counting from the west east- 
wards, there should be 285° from the first meridian 
to the extreme point of Asia, the Cabo do fim do 
abrill, or Cape Alpha et Omega, which would leave 
75° from the same starting point westwards to the 
mainland of Asia. The western end of Espanola 
was usually placed between 50° and 60° west of the 
first meridian; as a consequence, the eastern end of 
Cuba, being immediately opposite the western end 
of Espafiola, was between 15° and 25° too far east to 
represent eastern Asia according to these calcula- 
tions. When, therefore, a cartographer drew a map 
of the entire world, the mainland of Asia had to be 
placed, according to the existing theory, at a greater 
distance across the Atlantic. What followed was 
that the Columbian theory was used in plotting the 
chart westward across the Atlantic: whereas the 


140 CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Ptolemaic theory was adhered to in delineating the 
world eastward from the western coast of Europe. 
This procedure is evident in the Behaim globe, the 
Waldseemiiller map of 1507, and other maps that 
made the distance from Cape St. Vincent to the 
eastern side of the Sinus Magnus 180°. Indeed, 
many of the maps of the early sixteenth century dis- 
tinctly represent both theories. The Waldseemiiller 
map of 1507 is the first clear example of the whole 
world so drawn as to embody both theories. The 
Johan Ruysch map (1508) makes the estimates of 
Columbus the basis of the map, which Waldseemiiller 
does not quite do. Other cartographers working be- 
tween 1492 and 1507 avoided the issue by not rep- 
resenting the whole world. La Costa, for instance, 
omits that portion between Calicut in India and a 
point west of Cuba, about 140 degrees. It was, ap- 
parently, the difficulty of reconciling the Columbian 
and Ptolemaic theories of geography that led Peter 
Martyr7® to say: “It is not without cause that cos- 
mographers have left the boundaries of Ganges India 
undetermined. There are not wanting those among 
them who think that the coasts of Spain do not lie. 
very distant from the shores of India.” 

It is evident, therefore, that Harrisse’s argument, 
that the Cantino continental land could not be Asia 
because an eastern coast of Asia was already repre- 
sented, is untenable. 


70 MacNutt, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 92. 


“FLORIDA” ON CANTINO MAP 141 
CONCLUSION 


In conclusion, the present writer is convinced that 
the continental land northwest of Isabella was not 
Florida. This land was drawn under the misap- 
prehension that it was the mainland of Asia. The 
current ideas of eastern Asia, as shown on the 
Behaim globe and the Henricus Martellus Germanus 
map, were used, although the gulf was placed a little 
too far north. We have shown how this was a com- 
promise of the Columbus and Cabot discoveries. 
The lands actually explored and named under the 
impression of their being eastern Asia were: Cuba, 
discovered by Columbus; and the northeastern coast 
of North America, discovered and explored by John 
Cabot and the Corte-Reals. The cartographer in 
endeavoring to digest a mass of conflicting data— 
theoretical, documentary, cartographical, and oral— 
produced the result known as the Cantino map. 





INDEX 


A ponta d’ [Asia], 131 

Abulfeda’s ‘“‘Geography,”’ 

Adams, C. K., 55 

Admiral’s map, 92 

Aeneas Sylvius (Pius Il), 57 

Africa, 14; Columbus (Bartholomew) 
map of (ill.), 68; current along, 42; 
maps of, as regards equator, 23 

Agesinba, 8 

Ailly, P. d’, 7, 57 

Alexandretta, 19 

Alexandria, 13 

Al-Farghani, 2, 9, 10, 21 

Almadias, 38, 39, 123 

Al-Mamain, Caliph, 1, 13, 28 

Amat di S. Filippo, P., 35 

America, discovery of, 50 

Andilie, 131, 132 

Animals, 134 

Antilles, 131 

Antimaco, Giulio, 37 

Apianus (Petrus) map of 1520, 92 

“Arte de Navegar’’ letter, 43 

Asia, 1; Columbus (Bartholomew) map 
of (ill.), 67; Columbus’ belief that he 
had reached, 54, 76; distance west 
from Europe, 33; eastern, 139, 140, 
I41; eastern coast, 27, 62; eastern 
coast, distance from western Europe 
in degrees, various estimates, 89; 
eastward extension, estimating, 1, 
27, 30; extremity of, 132; geo- 
graphical background, 60; Harrisse’s 
views as to Columbus’ belief, 79; 
lands supposed to be Asia, 141; map 
constructed to show Columbus’ ideas 
of eastern Asia during his fourth 
voyage, 65, opp. 88 (ill.); southern 
coast, 60, 62; Thacher’s views as to 
Columbus’ belief, 82 

Atlantic Ocean, 19; Columbus (Barthol- 
omew) map of northern area, 66 (ill.); 
island outposts as key points for the 
study of, 33; navigation, problem of, 
33, 41; previous efforts to reconstruct 
Columbus’ route across, 35; route 
of Columbus on his first voyage and 
return, 34, 47, opp. 50 (ill.); wind 
belts of North Atlantic, 36; winds 
and currents, 47, opp. 50 (ill.); winds 
and currents, Columbus’ knowledge 
(o) ec 

Aurea Chersonesus, 62, 74, 75, 128 

Ayala, Pedro de, 129 

Azores, 34, 37, 42, 43, 44, 50, 51; posi- 
tion as to winds and currents, 34; 
west winds and their evidence of land 
farther west, 38 


Babcock, W. H., 41 
Bahama Islands, 50, 79, 109 


TS yl 1,20 


Balboa, V. N. de, 90 

Banchero, Giuseppe, 35 

Bancroft, H. H., 55, 93 

Beazley, C. R., 55 

Behaim’s globe of 1492, 29, 50, 71, 81, 
II14, 138, 140; eastern Asia on, 62; 
eastern hemisphere on, 63 (ill.); part 
of gore D to show latitude of Lisbon, 
TOS 

Bermuda, 45 

Bernaldez, Andrés, 27, 72, 103, 121,124, 
127 

Biblioteca Colombina, 57 

Biggar, H. P., 55 

Biscay, Bay of, 44 

Bona ventura, 134 

Bourne, E. G., 35, 96. See also Olson, 
J. E., and E. G. Bourne 

Brazil, 85, 131 

Brevoort, ToC 

Buchon, 1. A. e° ie J. Lastu, 20 

Bunbury, E. H., 13, 30 

Burney, James, ’5I 


C. arlear, 126, 136 

C. delgato, 126, 134, 135, 136 

CG. do fim do abrilly 123,727, 120 

C. do mortinbo, 126, 136 

Ci lurear, £20) 136, 137 

Cabo d. licdtir, 126, 133 

Cabo de béa ventura, 126, 133 

Cabo de Palmas, 127 

Cabo Santo, 122 

Cabot, John, 128, 129, 130, 141 

Cabot land, 128, 129, 130 (ill.) 

Cabot map of 1544, 90, 135 

Cabral PAs, s31 

Cael, 69 

Calicut, 140 

Calms, 42, 43, 49, 53 

Canary Islands, 37, 40, 42, 43, 44; 
parallel of, 32, 33, 47, 48, 49; posi- 
tion as to winds and currents, 34; 
starting point of the first voyage of 
Columbus, 45 

Canerio map of ca. 1504, 91, 95 (ill.); 
northwestern continental land on, 
117 (ill.) 

Canfure, 119 

Canovas, Vallejo, and Traynor, 105, 119 

Cantino, Alberto, 131, 134 

Cantino map of 1502, 78, 91, 94 (ill.); 
character, 141; delta on, I14; iden- 
tity of “Rlorida”’ on, 91 (see also 
‘Florida,’ etc.); northwestern con- 
tinental land on, 116 (ill.);| north- 
western continental land problem 
reconsidered, 108 

Cape Verde Islands, 42 

Caribbean Sea, 79 

Carta Marina of Waldseemiiller, 92 


144 


Cartographers’ difficulties in represent- 
ing New World, 139 

Cartography as basis for a new study 
of Columbus, 56 

Castafieda, Pedro de, 90 

Cat Island, 35, 36 

Catalan atlas of 1375, 76, 81 

Catalan world map of 1450, 20; equa- 
tor’s position, 23 

Catamounts, 134 

Cathay, 61; 62,83, 112 

Cats, 134 

Cattigara, 28, 29, 60, 61, 62, 60, 83, 139 

Central America, Caribbean coast of, 


74 

Channing, Edward, 55 

Charts, 18; Columbus’ criticism of con- 
temporary, 18; portolano, value, 18, 
19. See also Portolano charts 

Chin, Sea of, 63, 64, 73 

China, 62; distance from Lisbon, 89 

Churchill, Awnsham and John, 36, 124 

Ciamba, 64, 72, 73, 74, 82, I15 

Ciguare, 60, 74 

Cipangu, 62, 69, 70, 74, 83, 129, 130, 132 

Circumference of the earth, length ac- 
cording to Columbus, 10, 28; various 
estimates, 28 

Cities, great, absence of, 70, 76, 86 

Civao, 70 

Columbus, Bartholomew, maps, 28, 58, 
61, 64, 66-68 (ills.), 81, 83; views, 87 

Columbus, Christopher, 1; ‘“‘Arte de 
Navegar”’ letter, 43; belief he had 
reached Asia, 54, 76; books and maps 
used by him, 57; cartographical 
evidence as to his belief in Asia, 56; 
criticism of contemporary charts, 18, 
21; date of formulation of his con- 
cepts, 25, 26, 27; determination of 
the length of a terrestrial degree, 2; 
discovery of sailing routes across the 
Atlantic, 50, 51, 52; errors, character 
of, 30; estimate of the circumference 
of the earth, 10, 28; estimate of the 
size of the world, 10, 11; first voyage 
31 (see also Voyage of 1492); fourth 
voyage, geographical conceptions 
during, 60, 66-68 (maps); fourth 
voyage, letter of July 7, 1503, 60, 61; 
identifications made on his fourth 
voyage, 70; map constructed to show 
his ideas of eastern Asia on his fourth 
voyage, 65, opp. 88 (ill.); measuring 
a degree, method employed by him, 
I3; movements on his fourth voyage 
as reflection of his views, 71; naviga- 
tion, problem of, 41; navigation, 
proficiency in, 43, 53; measurement 
of a degree, source of error in his cal- 
culation, 22; statements from his 
writing as to the length of a degree, 6; 
statements as to the length of a degree 
analyzed, 11; Vignaud’s criticisms as 
to his knowledge of the length of a 
degree, 2, 5; visit to Guinea, 25, 26 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Columbus, Diego, 48 

Columbus, Ferdinand, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 
43, 103, 104, 124 

Cordier, Henri, 62 

Cornejo, 126, 136 

Correa, Pero, 39 

Corte-Real, Gaspar, 131 

Corte-Real, Miguel, 131 

Corte-Real land, 128, 131 

Costa alta, 119 

Costa de Perlas, 81, 82, 86 

Costa del mar vciano, 118 

Costa Rica, 73 

Cronau, Rudolf, 36 

Cruz, Cape, 103 

Cuba, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 78, 82, 83, 
92, 115, 128, 137, 138; 230), 241, 
Cantino map and unknown land in 
relation to Cuba discussed by Har- 
risse, 97; length, 85; names given 
by Columbus compared with those 
on northwestern land on Cantino map, 
102; names of La Cosa’s map com- 
pared with those on northwestern 
land on Cantino map, 104 

Currents, 42; Columbus’ study of, 43 


““De spera,”’ 9 

Deane, Charles, 129 

Degree of longitude, length of, 1; Co- 
lumbus’ method of measuring, 13; 
Columbus’ statements as to, 6; com- 
monly estimated before the time of 
Columbus, 5,46; correct value, 26; 
determination by Columbus, 1; 
Eratosthenes’ measurement, 13, 14; 
error in time of Columbus, 6; im- 
portance of, in the project of Co- 
lumbus, 27; various estimates, 28 

Dias, Bartholomew, 7, 8, II 


Earth, size of, 26, 28, 29; size in Colum- 
bus’ estimation, II 

East, distance to, 29 

Eclipses, 12 

el golfo bavo, 126, 127 

El] Mina, 7 

English Channel, 44 

Equator, 10, 12; position, 25; position 
on various maps, 23; Upper Guinea 
coast in relation to, on maps of Africa, 
23, Gagan 

Eratosthenes’ measurement of the 
length of a degree, 13, 14 

Esdras, Books of, II 

Espafiola, 69, 70, 73, 74, 76, 83, 92, 124, 
130, 139 

Espinosa, Gaspar de, 51 

Euphrates River, 65 


Fernandez Duro, Cesareo, 40, 49, 72 
Ferrara, Duke of, 131 

Ferro, 45 

Filippo, P, Amat di S., 35 


INDEX 145 


First voyage of Columbus, 31. See also 
Voyage of 1492 

Fischer, Joseph and F. R. von Wieser, 
23,04, Ol, O02, T10, TIT 

Fiske, John, 54, 77, 81, 93, 120, 136 

Flanders fleet, 44 

Floating islands, 40 

Flores, 38 

Florida, 52, 78, 85, 136 

“*Florida’’ on the Cantino map, 91; con- 
tinental land problem reconsidered, 
108; Harrisse’s analysis of the prob- 
lem, 92; Harrisse’s arguments an- 
swered, 108; identity, 91; place 
names compared with those given by 
Columbus to Cuba, 102; place names 
compared with those of La Cosa’s 
Cuba, 104; place names considered, 
II5; shape of the land, 108; sum- 
mary of.argument, I41 

Florida, Strait of, 51, 78 

Fortunate Isles, 60 

Fourth voyage of Columbus, 54; Co- 
lumbus’ geographical conceptions 
during, 60, 66-68 (maps); Columbus’ 
movements as reflection of his views, 
71; geographical background, 60; 
identifications made by Columbus, 
70; map constructed to show Colum- 
bus’ ideas of eastern Asia during this 
voyage, 65, opp. 88 (ill.) 

Fox, G. V., 34, 36 


G. do lurcor, 126, 136, 137 

Gaetan, Juan, 51 

Ganges region, 82 

Ganges River, 62, 74, 75, 76 

Gastaldi map of 1562, 90 

Gerini, G. E., 62 

Ghillany, F. W., 92 

Gibraltar, Strait of, 19, 20, 21, 69 

Gion, 76 

Glareanus mappemonde of 1510, 91 

Goats, 120 

Gold, 64, 75, 127, 128 

Golden Chersonese. 
sonesus 

Gomera, 32, 34, 45 

Gonzalez de Puebla, Ruy, 129 

Good Hope, Cape of, II 

Gracias 4 Dios, Cape, 73 

Grasses, 40 

Greenland, 132 

Groves, 128 

Guajaba Key, 102 

Guinea, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 18; Columbus 
and, 25, 26. See also Upper Guinea 

Guinea, Gulf of, 23, 24, 25 

Giilat, 75 

Gulf Stream, 51 

Guyard, Stanislas. See Reinaud, J. T., 
and Stanislas Guyard 


See Aurea Cher- 


Haiti, 52, 109, 124 
Halliwell, J. O.,-57 
Hamy map of 1502, 24, 25 


Harrisse, Henry, 54, 56; analysis of the 
problem of ‘‘Florida’”’ on the Cantino 
map, 92; arguments answered in the 
problem of ‘‘Florida’’ on the Cantino 
map, 108; ‘Bibliotheca Americana 
Vetustissima,’’ 127; ‘‘Corte-Real,” 
OI, 116, 118, 131; ‘‘Découverte . i 
de Terre Neuve,” 131, 134; ‘“‘Dis- 
covery of North America,” 55, 71, 79, 
80, 81, 90, 93, 94, 104, 105, 117, 118, 
IIQ, 120, 130, 131, 132, 134; examina- 
tion of his views about Columbus and 
the coast of Asia, 79; ‘‘John Cabot,” 


129 

Hauslaub globe, 92 

Havilla, 75 ; 

Head winds, 42, 53 

Heawood, Edward, 24 

Helps, Sir Arthur, 54 

Herbermann, C. G., 137 

Hieropolis, 65 

Honduras, 72, 73, 81, 82, 136 

Humboldt, Alexander von, on Colum- 
bus’ knowledge of the length of a 
degree, 5; ‘‘Examen critique,” 5, 105 


Iberian Peninsula, part of Ptolemy 
(1490) map to show latitude of Lis- 
ben's Gill.) £7 

Iguanas, 121, 122 

India, 32, 61, 80; sailing from Spain to, 
36, 40 

India extra Gangem, 62, 88, 89 

India intra Gangem, 62 

India of the Ganges, 72, 73, 140 

Indian Ocean, 24, 25, 29, 73, 82 

Indicum Mare, 62 

Insulae Fortunatae, 29 

Irving, Washington, 54 

Isabella, city of, 109 

Isabella, island of, 108, 109, 121,137,138 

Isabella Insula, 92 

Island of the Seven Cities, 41 

Islands, floating, 40; of the Atlantic, as 
key points for study, 34 

Italian nautical mile, 1, 17, 18, 21, 45 


Jamaica, 76, 81, 87, 103, 104 
Java, 64, 73 

Java Minor, 64 

Jomard, E. F., 60, 84, 92, 105, 135 
Joseph, Master, 6, 7, 9, 10, 17 
Josephus, 74, 75 


Khan, Great, 31, I19, 124, 129 

Kohl, J. G., 54, 93, 96 

Kretschmer, Konrad, ‘‘Entdeckung 
Amerikas,’’ 24, 95, 100, II9, 135; 
‘‘Katalanische Weltkarte,’”’ 20, 23 

Kunstmann, Friedrich, 134 


La Cosa (Juan de) map of 1500, 59, 60, 
78; Cabot land on, 130 (ill.); place 
names compared with Cantino map 
names, 104 


146 


lago del lodro, 126, 127 

lago luncor, 120 

Land, evidences of, in the west, 38 

Landfall of Columbus, 35, 36 

Land’s End, 19, 20, 21 

La Sagra, Ramén de, 105 

las cabras, 120 

Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 27, 32, 34, 38, 
39) 41, 43,44, 45, 53, 103, 104, F122, 
TIO 220127, ees es, Ted. Tes aE 7 

Ledesma, Pedro de, 72, 81 

Lelewel, Joachim, 13, 22, 28 

Leme, Antonio, 39 

Lisbon, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 22, 38; latitude, 
17; latitude on Behaim’s globe of 
1492, 16; latitude on Ptolemy (1490) 
map of Spain, 15 

Lizards, 122 

Lochac (Loach), 64, 74, 82, 128 

Longitudes, displacements on sixteenth- 
century maps, 84; geographers’ esti- 
mates in degrees of distance from 
western Europe to eastern Asia, 89 

Los Idolos Islands, 12,14,22; latitude, 17, 

Lower California, 85 

Lowery, Woodbury, 96 

Lukseh v3.92 

Lynx, 134, 135 


MacNutt, F. A., 114, 121, 124 

Madeira Islands, 34, 39, 40; position 
as to winds and currents, 34 

Magellan, Ferdinand, 51 

Magnus Sinus, 62, 87 

Maisi, Cape, 99, 102, 103 

Major, jee giles “Select Letters,” II, 61, 
72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 86, 102, II5, I19, 
127 

Malacca, Strait of, 73 

Mandeville, Sir John, 27, 57, 70 

Mangi, 20, 62, 63, 64, 70, 73, 74, 82, 83, 
I1I5, 138 

Manoel, Prince Dom, 132 

Mappemondes, 19; series of (1375-1500), 
20 

Maps, two theories reflected on, 139; 
Spanish and Portuguese compared as 
to longitudes, 84, 85 

Mar Oceanuz, 118 

Marcel, Gabriel, 118 

Marco Polo, 27, 57, 62, 70, 71, 73, 81 

Marinus of Tyre, 29, 30, 60, 61, 79, 139 

Markham, C. R., “Journal of Chris- 
topher Columbus,” 34, 44, 45, 46, 48, 
O3) 110) Ger. P22 pies ey Peo 
134; ‘Life of Christopher Columbus,”’ 
35, 36, 55 

Martellus Germanus, Henricus, 64, 70, 
8I, 114, 138 

Martyr, Peter, 114, 121, 122, 124, 140 

Mauro (Fra) map of 1459, 20, 81, 89 

Mediterranean Sea, 18, 19, 20 

Mendocino, Cape, 85 

Mexico, Gulf of, 78, 136 

Mississippi River, 108 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Mogador, 38 
Morales, Francisco, 48 
Miiller, Charles, 57 


Navarrete, M. F. de, 34, 60, 102, 108, 
Tit olan 

Navigation, 33, 38, 41; Columbus’ pro- 
ficiency in, 43, 53; problem of navi- 
gating the Atlantic in the light of 
contemporary knowledge, 41 

New World, term as used by Colum- 
bus, 82; Thacher’s idea of Colum- 
bus’ term, 87 

Newfoundland, 85 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 26 

Nicaragua, 73 

Nifia (ship), 46 

Nobbe, C. F. A., 57 

Nomenclature, 102, 104, 115. See also 
Place names 

Nordenskiéld, A. E., 54; ‘‘Facsimile 
Atlas,’ 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, .508 00105" 
84, 92, 128, 136; ‘‘Periplus,”’ 18, 19, 
20, 23, 24, 25, 28, 54, 58, 60, 64, 76, 
84, 90, OI, 105, 154, 138 

Nuevo Mundo, 81 


Oliveriana map, 134, 136 

Olson, J. E., and E. G. Bourne, 55 
Ophir, 75, 76 

Orinoco River, 70 

Ortiz de Retez, Yfligo, 51 


Pacific Ocean, discovery of routes 
across, 51 

Paesi novamente retrovati, 121 

Palos, 32, 34, 46 

Panama, 506, 85 

Papaga, 135, 132 

Paria, 81 

Parias, 137 

Pennesi, Giuseppe, 35 

Pentan, 64, 73 

Perez de Luna, Fernand, 108, 109, II5, 


133 

Peschel, Oskar, 35 

Peter Martyr, 114, 121, £22, P24, 1240 

Picard, Jean, 26 

Pilots, 46, 47, 72, 86, 108 

Pines, 38 

Pines, Isle of, 99, 103 

Pinta (ship), 46 

Pinzén, M. A., 40, 112 

Pius II (Aeneas Sylvius), 7 

Place names, 103, 106, 115; Cuba and 
unknown land on Cantino map com- 
pared as to, 102; La Cosa’s Cuba and 
Cantino northwestern land compared, 
104 

Polo, Marco, 27, 57,62, 70, 71s 7a00E 

Ponce de Leén, Juan, 91 

Popinjays, 134 

Porto Rico, 48 

Porto Santo, 39 


INDEX 147 


Portolano charts, 18; relative error 
estimated by comparison with mod- 
ern maps, 19; series of (1375-1500), 
20; value, 18, 19, 22 

Portugal, 33, 34; current along, 42 

Portugal, Infant of, 40 

Portugal, King of, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 132 

Portuguese, 34; voyages to the north- 
west, 131 

Portuguese maps compared with Span- 
ish as to longitudes, 84, 85 

Prescott, W. H., 54 

Ptolemy, Claudius, 27, 139; estimate of 
a degree, 28, 29; ‘“Geography,”’ edi- 
tions, 57 

Ptolemy map of 1490, 21, 58-59 (ill.), 
79, 80; Asia as represented on, 62; 
equator’s position, 23; Iberian Pe- 
ninsula (in part) on, 15 (ill.), 17 

Puerto Grande, 127 

pita Roixa, 123 


Raccolta di documenti e studi pubbli- 
cati. . . pel quarto centenario dalla 
scoperta dell’ America, 7, II, 34, 43, 
44, 57, 60, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 86, 102, 
TOs Moots Tho, 120, L21, 122) 123, 
124, 127, 134 

Ravenstein, E. G., map showing routes 
of the four voyages, 35; ‘Martin 
Benaim= 856) 17, 25, 27, 20, 50,62, 
63, 64, 69, 71, 75, 89, 108, 138 

Reeds, 39 

Reinaud, J. T., and Stanislas Guyard, 1 

Reinel (Pedro) chart, 134 

Rio de dé diego, 123 

Rio de las almadias, 122 

Rio de las palmas, 126, 127 

Rio de los largartos, 121 

Rio do corno, 126, 136 

Roldan, Juan, 49 

Ruge, Sophus, 12 

Ruysch map of 1508, 128, 136, 140 


Saavedra, Alvaro de, 51 
Sailors, 45, 46; complaints, 48 
St. Vincent, Cape, 28, 39, 61, 123, 139 
Samana Bay, 52 

San Nicolas, 124 

San Salvador, 35 

Santangel, Luis de, 72 
Santarem, M. F., 20 

Sargasso Sea, 40, 41 

Schoéner globes, 90, 92 

Chott. (Ge S5 

Seilan, 73 

Seneca, 36, 37 

Seven Cities, Island of the, 41 
Seville, 57 

Shea, J. G, 96, 137 

Sicily, 120 

Sierra Leone, 6, 7 

Sinjar, I 

Solomon, 75 


Soncino letters, 129 

South America, 70 

Spain, 45. See also Iberian Peninsula 

Spanish maps compared with Portu- 
guese as to longitudes, 84, 85 

Spice Islands, 51 

Stevens, Henry, 55, 93, IIS, 

Stevenson, E. L., ‘‘Description of Early 
Maps,” 84; ‘‘Early Spanish Cartog- 
raphy,” 96; ‘‘Genoese World Map,” 
hor ‘‘Maps Illustrating Early Dis- 


covery,’ 84, 85, 91, 118, 132; ‘‘Marine 
World Chart of Nicolo de Canerio 
Januensis,” 56, 91, 96; ‘Martin 
Waldseemiiller,”’ 96; ‘*Portolan 


Charts,” 19; “ Typical Early Maps,” 
6 

Stobnicza hemispheres, 92 

Syene, 13 


Taprobana Insula, 62 

Tarducci, Francesco, 55 

LPastins |aoeer buchos, J. A. ©., anda). 
Tastu 

Terra de Corte-Real, 131, 132, 133 

Terra de los Baccalaos, 85 

Terra Nova, 85 

Terrestrial oe ee See Degree 

Thacher, J. B., 55, 56; ‘‘Christopher 
Columbus,”’ 32, 43, 55, 70, 82, 86, 87, 
108, I15; examination of his view 
about Columbus and the coast of 
Asia, 82; idea of Columbus’ term, 
“New World,’’ 87 

Tigers, 134 

Toscanelli chart, 56 

Trade winds, 49 

Trinidad (ship), 51 


Ulloa, Alfonso, 37 

Upper Guinea coast, equator in relation 
to, on maps of Africa, 23, 24, 25 

Urdaneta, Andrés de, 51 


Varnhagen, F. A. de, 77, 93, 114, 136 

Vascano, Antonio, 59, 105 

Vasquez de la Frontera, Pero, 40 

Velez Allid, Alonzo, 40 

Vera Cruz, 85 

NSS, SO, GO} 7450 7510s OSs COs Lars 
12 

Vespucius voyage of 1497, 77, 136 

Vicente, Martin, 39 

Vignaud, Henry, 2; Columbus’ belief 
that he had reached Asia, 54; conten- 
tion as to Columbus’ conduct of the 
westward voyage, 46, 47; criticism of 
Columbus as to his knowledge of the 
length of a degree, 2, 5, 25, 27, 28; 
“Histoire critique,’ 2, 25, 31, 32, 33) 
45, 46, 54, 57, 65; lack of scientific 
considerations preceding Columbus’ 
first voyage, 31; ‘“‘Toscanelli and 
Columbus,” 18, 54 


148 


Vivien de Saint-Martin, Louis, 26, 28 

Voyage of 1492, 31; analysis of west- 
ward voyage, 44; falsifying the day’s 
run, 45, 46; log, 45, 46; previous 
efforts to reconstruct Columbus’ 
route, 35; return voyage, 50; route 
across the Atlantic and return, 34, 
47, Opp. 50 (map); route as evidence 
of his knowledge of Atlantic winds 
and currents, 31; scientific prepara- 
tion, 33 


Wagener, Hermann, ‘‘Geschichte der 
Seemeile,’’ 18; ‘‘Toscanelli-Karte,” 
18 


Waldseemiiller gores, 91 

Waldseemiiller map of 1507, 64, 79, 90, 
QI, 137, 140; equator on, 23; north- 
western land on (ill.), 110 

Waldseemiiller map of I516, 92, III 
(ill.), 113 

Watling Island, 36 

Weise, A. J., 55 

West Indies, 50 


CONCEPTIONS OF COLUMBUS 


Western sea, 40 

Wieser, F. R. von, ‘*‘ Karte des Bartolo- 
meo Colombo,” 28, 58, 66, 87, 127; 
““Magalhdes-Strasse,” 92. See also 
Fischer, Joseph, and F. R. von Wieser 

Wildcats, 134 

Winds, Columbus’ study of, 43; North 
Atlantic belts, 36 

Winship, G. P., 90 

Winsor, Justin, 54; ‘‘Christopher Co- 
lumbus,”’ 55, 96; ‘‘Narrative and 
Critical History of America,’’ 36, 57, 
129, 137 

World. See Earth 


Ydolos, los. See Los Idolos Islands 
Young, Filson, 35, 56 

Yucatan, 96, 136 

Yucatan, Strait of, 78 

Yule, Sir Henry, 62 


Zaitun, 60 
Zipangu. See Cipangu 
Zurla, Placido, 28 





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set Ree eeseets At RSLS Fae ot: 
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2 pated soto <9 a pees Se oesesesete Seen IETUMES otters patiaten a ieleetetentesetiinsotitcee ts : 





ng.ass papiwts epneag Spee a 
Teapnasaesst faveib ei easie: 


botsages pag hive i ath Ses teksty tea ards 





aoe Ra oece se sest SRE cEee SESE Sess 

















peciest atte soneterere taser seat ees ea tearbe tate Seek eek ee tie er tat svieactessteses poate at treme 
age q ng hes se ureers hespiedite ies eitstasibeteretstes eee? Set sighed Sate haeteayh oj qpeomeaeeeeaseess o : 
Geratptn es fp tpetmece pee meee seeee peaeatsbert crits otto cy Sie peal oe tees Sy ot edasnekteaesinche te an prey 
4 pears 9 a aD OR EDS PR Ee EOI END oP ETRE pebesreteciescericm opera ipbrsst tar ieers iter tee tes ane 





oS Sastoeee 





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Seber age rmees estes ape trast apes ieee Fox bemrenees 
+; . Tae 


Seas shat sbeirsniwmnetinrfee ee ais. Paes Woaeinre ed, 

















potetecerhieresd 











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: isha enasiees SERS SE TS NSE SAE ESS SEE Ree ic tenet teeeeears eet ee ee eae eee : 








ee eee 
Teen eee ee pe Spee a ee To 


be ceuatent sitseesectenreses spent SI roe 
Sy tceateeegees fy Se encore 2 HoSz ed Fecmapahosaetgeaastatst Be ent 
Sens - metas z 





een : teeta ea 


pare 






sae certian Maem 


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esvoret bpoyonreysrpenega sosesey tp 

coueg4 sms ~ aprereanns cats wae rere eee 
pogrsshymmapepiab yore Wei eagtiny bi saw ce secaamy sora bias a Aes pry yw! 










= qa SSS 
jets anes ec 
Peestaoeereate 


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TARE SEE Stet Sgt ts rep iS 3 
Sette Seen se eat eae SE : 
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eins eso Tints teeterewvessrer ae sracopenestes: < 
ies Sg ec rebstnacste ; 
eet eae Stat pig tee ee ‘ = > : 








eerie 
ip Viccctee seer se seeare ase ats pee iabpegtamegsSiorneoet Seamer + 
eee N.Laee hee lontomenece preeitaase 








sie tbaterertraees Seo anew sn apap” 















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rretttecteten tite ees Bee Ste terse eee a tte i 
Toesepepecepe Stet Syrvaseatesy re pio bya: Soo wees rSpearasperanes Ceegsoe eeeeeeere ast 
Sroeerets ab Hy reiakghs Syiyhysosases poe apaaien be Cy wpe eye “iagin ets 





Siero a er at pnt ea en 
















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sae beri raeeates seen sys sapaah a suns Sess set Soe eae aa 
erst is teeees tote rate ninwioeimtaepehatcnre tig ee ta i 
& Wicicen tabs cyterena ye), Mstrstisteaticetaasss = 
sigstat rea gehe stot Set eee 
puoreretrtsceratrss reese 
eectepe ees Serre tee eee Sere eee een 
Prtrelacsees 


wae: PeSeres~? 
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= 

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335 oo 
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aise Et Soak earh Starrett ten. sth trer ePaper tient ent eee 








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a SEE SISSIES gebt sabe sate 
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sororees stissish arectristateserertastiee te ? 
{SoS SESS EES eres ees SS basa senses rest 
eresehitiatarsstielis estsates 

























a os ae oo — a a ~~? ~~ 
pater eEcisirs ro : (pee beater eter Pts 3 8 baht eet ey being rey tesa sated 3 
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Sade as, 





bens Riaring 
8 = TS Se SFeincametstossiatate nage 


SEE SSS 















— Se eee ae Sheree we ee mts aie pteerses ~ — 

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nope GREDSs TLL Sate sists Leebe ropaes basin alee coe bales gaateaw Spee eeueeese Mansons 
JEUY SSP eiay tian ates 








Meir ertgeret spe: bya ph SS 
sone Sa ora Lesion tee yee ae ee tne 


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Siege presses Siainihtints estsoer 

= ison pieiest ph sya aase 








































pong suyarge hans ne cane SS ape sesee ss eer eEeeS 
Seger ay seen ay prey wry ee 
Porter pen en eetee sect 
Sate ieee, eye 








SS Sl HEE eee See 








Ss 
Se NE oes Serttereen 









weptet pc totmmene tees epee gt Seep aperieyte reo 


Simctrsie ee nesetster! . 
eboneiet - oe te eeESts2 <i “MINIS Staats 


Smo as mae bn wy aoe ses es pent . 
Sone ee = Tee Spears eer aoe 


re mee sep tespim onl 
Mb iran oe ae thee ween 


eS Pokeas sats Spey 
baeeebtateeatee 
Selngtsbe': tes 


- 
Seeuaha: “ 
height tyeeiy 





oS 
tet oe re meg te my toy ees eb te rae: 
S33 = 







































: 
sietatitetapespeerbey ~ Op ae . 

~ Seer ear er beaks de ety Sebibgi ial ba bbe Seeasagaa) * al eS 

every Seve ened mek etses hss vy ete Sire eet shpat wees 

~ 32> Sri ag reen eine eeeirsee 








pepe eoecteeets 












tSteertos pote ancetr es eeree 

eibteeretaletat SStret yt rete titeenet eee Pastas 

berristraetes SeIatre cot setcie treet eeeraree tot 
¢ eserist Sav Eeoy note we erty towel 


eee ete a ae er eae an ao we eee TEST aT Te et he earners ty Tere nrmne yy sans 


neki naire | wots ame Nn 






























iS HAeoeeensse Seren ———S ee ees - 
avy Tera be asS fon. Bisse see aes “ 








